


Vantage Point

by Anima Nightmate (faithhope)



Series: All For One and, well, you know the rest... [2]
Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Ambushes and Sneak Attacks, Anal Fingering, Anal Play, Anal Sex, Angst and Feels, Angst and Humor, Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon-Typical Violence, Come Swallowing, Comrades, Comrades in Arms, Consensual, Consensual Sex, Deepthroating, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Duelling, Enthusiastic Consent, Espionage, Explicit Consent, Fellatio, Food, Friendship, Frottage, Fugue, Hair-pulling, Humor, Humour, Interrogation, Kissing, Lube, M/M, Masturbation, Minor Original Character(s), Mutual Masturbation, Neck Kissing, Oral Sex, Panic Attacks, Porn With Plot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rimming, Secret Relationship, Sixty-nine, Teasing, Tenderness, clandestine meetings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-19
Updated: 2018-03-05
Packaged: 2019-03-21 02:01:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 23,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13730742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faithhope/pseuds/Anima%20Nightmate
Summary: Summer in the city and The Musketeers are being sent on missions outside of Paris. Separately. Athos longs to see more of d’Artagnan. Will love (or even lust) find a way?





	1. Garrison

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which bodies come together and move apart, very quickly.

He’s come to appreciate the little things. The brush of a hand. A lingering glance. Standing shoulder to shoulder.

For that matter, the narrowness of some of the corridors in the barracks, and the darkness of some of its corners.

He feels his eyes drifting closed as memory of sensation assails him - cold wall to his back, hot body in front of him; the texture of sliding cloth under his hands. The sound of a muffled groan, breathing coming heavy all around them in the closed space. The taste of his lips, throat, fingers. The feel of those hands on his face, tugging at his hair.

A cry jerks his eyes open, creased immediately by dust-white sunlight.

“Come on, d’Artagnan, you ponce!”

“Come on, Boucher, you big oaf!”

“I’ve got eight sous on you, d’Artagnan!”

“I’ve got fifteen on you, Boucher!”

“Oh yeah?!”

They are shifting in a loose circle, shirtsleeves and leather breeches, daggers only, fenced in by cheering, jeering Musketeers. The sun beats down on a holiday atmosphere, the two combatants grinning at each other from time to time, after a swift strike-parry-turn.

Boucher is obviously the bigger of the two - at least four inches taller, shoulders like a dray horse, with a close-shaven head that makes him look a little alien, adds to the barbaric mien he cultivates.

His reach is easily more than d’Artagnan’s, calculates Athos; maybe even as much as a hand’s length difference.

D’Artagnan still has plenty of energy, and is dancing foot to foot in the spiralling dust of the practice yard. He flicks his hair from his face with that short toss of his head, keeps his eyes on his opponent.

He is probably less strong than Boucher, pound-for-pound of force exerted, but a fair amount faster. And definitely more flexible.

Athos clenches his jaw on that thought.

His comrades toss out insults and imprecations to get on with it, come on! I want my lunch!

“You’ve had enough lunch, Lambert,” returns d’Artagnan, calmly enough. It’s not a good insult, but it’s fast, and it gets the rest laughing.

Boucher comes on, quicker than he would have expected, barrelling in, swings up, not with the dagger, but with his left fist. D’Artagnan jinks, but still takes it in the hollow between his right shoulder and chest.

Damn.

He twists under Boucher’s dagger arm, but not at the right angle to bring his own to bear, choosing instead to kick the man on the back of the knee as he comes past.

With these moves the game has changed; everyone grows a little quieter, the two face off against each other with more serious faces, circle slower, brows down.

D’Artagnan breaks forward with his left foot, Boucher flinches up, but it’s only a test, and the next thing, they’re circling again.

Athos leans his head back against the wooden pillar he’s propped against for a moment, and tries not to worry.

“Don’t worry!” A hand claps on his right shoulder. He looks around to see Aramis, standing companionably, smiling as easily as ever. “He’ll be fine.”

“Of course.”

“Have you placed your bet?”

“I don’t…”

“Oh, sorry, of course. You never gamble.”

“Nah,” comes Porthos’s voice, “he takes his risky pleasures in other ways.”

Athos looks slowly to his left, expression as schooled as ever, while his heart gives two quick kicks and his stomach lurches.

Porthos raises his eyebrows. “Come on,” he says, “how much did you have to drink last night?”

Nothing. “Oh, the usual,” he drawls.

Porthos shakes his head. “You’ll be old before your time.”

“And wiser than you, by the same token.”

Porthos smiles lazily as Aramis chuckles, looks out towards the fight. They follow suit.

Boucher swipes, d’Artagnan parries. Athos feels his eyes narrow. He wishes his friend didn’t reach forward so much. It’s a product of his early training, for sure - an overarm, tucked-belly curve, but one of these days it will foul his footing as he commits too much to the strike.

Boucher’s next dagger-strike comes within an inch of d’Artagnan’s face as he ducks back and his three friends hiss inwards. Next second they’re yelping as d’Artagnan gut-kicks the bigger man while his opponent’s arm is across his chest and still committed to that high swing.

Boucher coughs, hands on his knees, while d’Artagnan holds back, pacing at the edge of the rough ring.

“Chivalrous idiot,” growls Porthos, softly.

“What,” says Aramis, “he should get first blood in now? Where’s the skill in that?”

“The skill is staying alive,” returns the other, “and be buggered to fancy notions.”

They both look at Athos, who flicks his attention off the ring long enough to give them a swift look each and a shrug as he stares forward again. “In all honesty, I’m inclined to both your views.”

“It’s only a game,” protests Aramis, softly. “So there should be rules to protect them.”

“Yeah, but Boucher buggered that when he went for the eyes.”

Aramis draws breath, then sighs and says: “That’s fair.” Raising his hand to his mouth he shouts: “Go on, d’Artagnan, have him!”

Porthos chuckled. “That’s more like it,” he mutters. “Come on, son,” he bawls, “kick him in the nuts!”

Soon the whole yard is ringing with exhortations and insults. Most are generally along the lines of the pair of them wasting time, with general equations of their poor prowess here being indicative of disappointments elsewhere.

“Well, DuBois,” calls d’Artagnan, “if your fucks finish as quickly as your fights, I pity the poor…” and spins as the crowd’s roar alerts him to a charging Boucher.

The bull-like man nearly impales himself on the Gascon’s hastily outflung dagger, dodges, catches d’Artagnan’s left-hand punch with his face, and flails out with his own blade.

D’Artagnan has over-committed with his swing, sees Athos.

Damn.

“Shit,” says Porthos.

A tearing sound and d’Artagnan dances away, his loose shirt hanging ragged from a long lateral tear under his armpit.

He dabs his hand to his side, then holds up the flat of it to the crowd.

No blood.

“Bloody hell,” says Porthos.

Athos is inclined to agree.

He is focusing as much attention as he can on this confrontation, but is, of course, diverted by the sight of that oak-coloured skin, feeling the trace of it beneath his fingertips, wondering how it would taste if he ran his tongue along the salted, sacred curves of his ribs.

It occurs to him that, though he has touched many parts of d’Artagnan body, it has never been in the light. And he has never seen him entirely naked.

All their encounters since the woods have been dark, held-breath presses, frantic, fully-clothed fumblings.

He looks at his friend, whirling in sunlight under other people’s gazes and he craves more.

God, he wants more.

“What was that?” asks Aramis.

“Move more quickly,” bellows Athos. “Wear him out!” then flinches at d’Artagnan’s distraction.

Boucher’s left arm is about his throat from behind. D’Artagnan is clawing at it with his left while holding off the dagger rising at his chest with his right. Athos is forward on his toes, peering anxiously, every part of him clenched into fists. He dimly perceives something grey in his right peripheral vision.

“Break his nose!” bellows Porthos. Athos winces. That kind of backwards headbutt is difficult enough to pull off for a practised tavern brawler. He has to concede, though: the angle is about right.

It’s all about timing, though, and d’Artagnan is focused on holding down that straining dagger arm.

Athos tries to rise higher, closer. He can’t see! He can’t bloody see!

“D’Artagnan! Boucher! _That’s enough! I said: THAT’S ENOUGH!_ ”

The bellow from on high stops everything short. Everyone in the yard turns and faces upwards to where Treville is no doubt leaning forward, arms spread, speaking down like a prophet from on high. The three beneath the balustrade give each other startled looks. Athos is amazed to see Aramis’s hand outstretched in front of him. As he looks down, Aramis casually lets it drop away and gives him a “What?” look, puppy eyes large.

Athos keeps staring at him.

“It was all under control,” murmurs the other man. “If you’d charged in…?”

“Right,” says Athos. “Right.”

Treville has continued guldering at the rest of the garrison, who are dispersing sheepishly, while d’Artagnan and Boucher stand, legs spread and arms down, a decent distance apart from each other, while gazing up at their captain with as innocent expressions as they can muster.

“ _And sheathe your bloody weapons!_ ” he concludes. They comply. “And you three! I want you up here _right now_.”

The friends look at each other, eyes wide.

“Hop to it!”

“Yes, sir,” calls Aramis. “How does he always know?” he appealed, more quietly.

“That’s why he’s the captain,” says Porthos.

They dutifully troop upstairs. “You too, d’Artagnan!”

“Yes, sir.”


	2. The Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brief travelogue. With trees. And, okay, a wee bit angst.

“No, listen, I’m, mmh, serious. Ah. No, I’ll be gone for at least th-three days.”

“I understand.”

“Uh. Oh. Oh good (oh god), that’s… I… I just… Oh!”

A wicked, whispered chuckle. “Do you feel like you have my undivided attention?”

“Mmh. _Mmmmh._ ”

“Well then, what would you like me to do next?”

“Shhh!”

“Sorry!” A cobweb of sound, rising up to his ear, terminating in a swift nip of the lobe.

“Ah!”

“Shhh!”

“You are in _so_ much trouble.” A slap and groan of leather.

“When you get back from, _there_ , Riems.”

“O-Orléans. Porthos is, uh, going to… mmmhRiems… uh…”

“And Aramis?”

“Rouen.”

“Athos, please let me…”

“No! No… Not, not here. Not. Please.”

A short growl. “When?”

“Not… not. Just… just kiss me.”

“Yes.”

* * *

“How you getting there, then?”

“I thought I’d take the post road to Corbeil, then south to Orléans, following the river.”

Porthos chewed on this. “Nah. Horrible route.”

“Really,” he drawled. “And you advise…?”

“You want to go via Fontainebleau, _then_ head south. Well, south-west…”

“Exactly - it’s out of my way…”

“But it’s a much nicer route, is my point.”

Athos shook his head. “You’re mistaken.”

“Listen, you know the Orléans region?”

“Better than you, I’ll wager.”

“All right, fifteen sous says…”

“ _No_.”

“I don’t know what _you_ ’re grinning at,” Porthos snapped at Aramis. “You hate travelling about as much as you hate being up before dawn.”

“Not so, and I’ve got a post road pretty much all the way.”

“Nah, you don’t want to go the post road the _whole_ way.”

D’Artagnan yawned delicately, covering the cat-like curl of his tongue with the back of his hand.

“We keeping you awake, sunshine?”

“Sorry. No - I didn’t sleep well last night, is all.”

“Must be frustrating,” commiserated Aramis.

“Very,” he said, eyes scanning the exercise yard. “When does he get here?”

“When he gets here,” said Porthos. “You know that. Here,” he smirks, “you want to get that Constance to take care of your sleeping problem. Ow!” He turned on Aramis indignantly. Aramis widened his eyes meaningfully. “Turning chilly,” he remarked, rubbing his ribs. Sniffed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t mention it,” replied D’Artagnan, coolly. “Look, here he is.”

“’Bout time.”

* * *

Unlike Aramis, allegedly, he did like travelling, by and large, especially alone, able to set his own pace. This should be ideal: no-one to guard, no-one to argue with, and the destination a good deal less than a day’s journey away. He was an excellent guard - able to keep at least three different things in his mind and view at all times; able to plan for most eventualities, suspicious, decisive, inventive, vicious in a pinch, a good leader of men. But… well, there’s a difference between being good at something and enjoying it. A difference between being what you were raised to be and… yourself.

And so, of course, instead of enjoying the solitude he’d craved for weeks, the edging cool of the rising day, the lark song and blackbird fluting, the waking nods of occasional pedestrians, the even more occasional horseman, he found himself missing company.

_Specific company._

Fine. Specific company in particular.

He sighed, out of sorts. It didn’t help that the one person of his friends who would appreciate this most was the other country boy - as far as the others were concerned, countryside was background between here and there. If you couldn’t obviously eat it, drink it, or set fire to it, it was a rock. As he cantered along a relatively straight part of the Corbeil-Orléans route his mind was gloomily cataloguing: oak, beech, birch, alder, oak, birch, birch, elm.

He slowed, another jink in the road coming up. Overshadowed with… more oak and some fern and birch (hazel?) as the banks rose.

His ears pricked with the horse’s. It was… quiet. Really quiet. He leaned forward, ostensibly to pat the horse’s neck, loosening his pistol in its saddle holder.

They trotted into uneasy shade, the summer sun greened and shifting. Under his hat’s brim his eyes moved constantly, now cataloguing each wind-sigh, leaf-shift, brook murmur, darting crackle of small animal life. Not much of that.

Maybe a hawk, he thought. That would stifle the wood pigeons he heard grumbling lightly, silence the blackbirds who should have already been alarming for him, and bring everything on four feet undercover.

It did not feel like a hawk.

Athos mapped the man-shaped gap of air with all his senses until they’d traversed the breathless pass and cantered into brightness.

After an hour, he’d stopped thinking about it, and didn’t revisit the notion until later that night. By which point it was arguably far too late.

Orléans loomed into view as the track widened to meet it, becoming an estuary of cart ruts and dried mud before Roman paving asserted itself. Athos walked his horse on the softer grass at the road’s edge, and drank warm water from his canteen. The day’s traffic had picked up, despite it being not long after noon, and everything was crescendoing towards the town walls.

It had been… he thought hard… three years since he was last in Orléans. His memories were shamefully hazy. Six months ago he would have denied this. Six weeks ago he would have denied “shameful”. He put away the water bottle, patted his horse, and strode on a little faster, a deceptively stocky figure all in black, his distinctive blue cloak and badged leather pauldron stowed away. This was not a mission on which to be visibly a King’s Musketeer.

His man might - or might not - rendezvous tomorrow or the next day at the Sign of the Goat. The simplest thing would be to stay at the inn itself, and wait, an inconspicuously idle day-drinker, until his man arrived. Athos was immediately suspicious of this simplicity, but conceded that, in a city the size of Orléans, and the woolliness of his personal knowledge of the place, simplicity would have to stand for a well-constructed, multi-part plan at short notice.

The sun bounced off the road in front of him, and off the walls of the city.

“What’s your business here?”

“I’m here to meet my cousin.”

“Name?”

“His or mine?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“Armand Boucher.”

“You don’t look like a butcher.”

“And you don’t look like a wealthy man…” a subtle press of the hand.

“On you go, sir. Hope you find your cousin well.”

“Oh, me too. Good day to you!”

“Good day! Next!”


	3. Stopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The ancient city of Orléans and its various delights (chief among which: warm water).

Inside the gates it’s darker, but no cooler. The mingled smells of hot, haggling humanity rise up around them. The main difference between here and Paris is that there are more people dressed in the clerical kind of black he associates with Protestants. He stands out less here than at home.

Of course, he also only has the sketchiest idea where he’s heading. Somewhere near the Cathedral. Shouldn’t be too difficult to find - look for the enormous church with scaffolding all over it.

He walks his horse through the streets, leading it at a gentle, unassuming pace. _I am tired; I am looking for my cousin; it’s a long way from Fontainebleau…_

“Excuse me.”

“Yes?”

“Which way to the Cathedral?”

“That way. Ya can’t miss it.”

“Many thanks.”

 _It’s been three years since I’ve seen him; I wonder if he has any work for me; I miss the farm_ …

“Excuse - what’s the shortest way to the Cathedral?”

“With that beast? Straight down this road, due south, then, once you cross the new boulevard, you can’t miss it.”

_I’m hungry; once I get there I can stop; this place is so big and confusing…_

“Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me?”

“He’s deaf, mister.”

“Ah. Do you know the way to the Cathedral?”

“’Course!”

A sigh. “Could you please tell me?”

A nose-picking era of consideration. The horse shifts its weight.

“Yeah.”

“Where is it, please?”

“Whatchoo giveme.”

The back of my hand. “A fond farewell.” He smiles. The urchin’s eyes go wide and he leans back involuntarily. It is not Athos’s nice smile.

He points. “Izzat way!”

“Much obliged.” Athos touches his hat and ambles on.

_People in the big city are so unnerving… all right, no, that’s over-egging it. I look like I can take care of myself…_

The Cathedral glides into view. When it’s finished, he reflects, it’ll look a lot like Notre Dame. Closer to, he spares it a fatigued side-eye, starts casting around for somewhere to stay. _I just need some food, some wine, somewhere to sit. Somewhere to sleep tonight._

_I miss d’Artagnan._

Damn.

“Excuse me,” he’s picked a comfortable, merchant-looking fellow, the kind who’ll want to show how much he knows.

“Yes, young man?” Good, he fancies a chat.

“What are the, er, decent taverns around here? I need somewhere to stay for a few nights.”

The merchant gazes at him for a while: “Cost or quality?”

“Excuse me?”

“Which is more important?”

“Oh. Well, a balance, I suppose.”

The merchant gifts him a small smile below sharpened eyes. “I’d say your choices would be The Wren, The Drummer Boy, The Queen’s Head, The Sign of the Goat, The Three Lilies, and Chanticleer. Though,” he adds, “if I’m honest, I’d stay clear of Chanticleer, nice young man like you.”

Athos knows he doesn’t look like a nice young man. He looks like a tired man in need of a drink, and that he’s never going to be able to entirely hide his fighter’s stance. He disguises a lot of it by leaning into the horse’s flank, but still.

He shakes his head: “I’m after somewhere quiet.”

“Definitely not Chanticleer then,” he says with a chuckle.

A small, answering smile fades into view on Athos’s face. He waits.

“The Queen’s Head, The Lilies, and The Goat, then.”

“And the, er, best balance of those?”

“Lilies or Goat.”

“Could you…?”

“Of course.” He turns, points, gives Athos the kind of comprehensive directions that a clever man would expect a clever man, new to the city, to remember.

Athos touches his hat, moves on, and tries to shake the edges of an uncomfortable feeling. He goes first to The Three Lilies, and comes back out onto the street, shaking his head and looking disappointed. On, then, to the Sign of the Goat.

The landlord has straggly, greying hair and is a good head shorter than Athos. “Just the one room?”

“And stable space.”

“That’s extra.”

“Of course.”

“You all right to share, or…”

“I’ll pay the extra.”

“How many nights?”

“Three. Probably.”

“Name?”

“Boucher. Armand Boucher.”

This touches a small smile to the landlord’s eyes. “Boucher.” He sniffs. “Talking like that.”

“Armand to my friends.”

“Naturally.” The landlord smiles at that one. He has a great repertoire of brief, sudden smiles and suspicious stares.

“That’ll be fifteen sous a night. You want food?”

“Yes please.”

“You eat Spanish-like food? It’s five sous more.”

“I’ll take anything.”

“Figures. Talks like a toff and smells like a soldier.”

“Some hot water will do wonders for that.”

The landlord barks a laugh. “Got your own soap?”

“Of course.”

“Marisa!” He nods at Athos. “The wife. Marisa! Attend me, woman!”

“Attend yourself!” comes from the back.

“It’s all I do,” he tells Athos, mournful as a pelican.

Athos can’t help but laugh, as intended.

“Marisa!”

“What is it?”

A woman with honeyed colouring bustles out of the back, looks Athos up and down with a sniff. “What’s this? Looks like a soldier.”

“Armand Boucher, madame.”

She laughs. “My arse it is. Want some food?” her accent is faded, but clearly not French.

“Yes, please.”

“He wants a bath, Marisa.”

“No, he wants to stable his horse, eat some food, then have a wash.”

“Madame, you’re a magician.”

“And you’re a sly bugger. Go on, then.”

He touches a forelock with a grin and makes his way to the stable.

The food is. Well, he’s definitely eaten worse, and been satisfied by smaller portions. He sits back when he’s done, happy enough, and wondering what the locals make of cuisine so very obviously Iberian. He suspects, looking around casually at the obvious regulars, at the lack of damage in the place, that they don’t care too much.

Marisa comes over with a jug. “More water?”

“Please.”

“More wine?”

He hesitates. “No. Thank you.”

“Hmm. Thirsty old way.”

“Only from Fountainebleau.”

“Still.”

“As you say: long enough.”

A watching pause.

“Madame…”

“Beaulieu.”

“Madame Beaulieu, I would very much appreciate that wash.”

“You go on upstairs, I’ll send the girl to see to you.”

“My thanks.”

Nearly at the door to the stairs, she says: “She’s a good girl. Not family, but she is.”

He turns, frowning, to see her face stubborn and shadowed. He lets the frown clear slower than his understanding. “I’m sure she is, madame,” he says, cautiously. “It’s good to have a member of staff you can rely on.”

“Yes,” she says with a sniff. “Well.”

He nods and heads upstairs, shaking his head slightly, noticing, in that way he’ll never lose, which steps under the dusty carpet creak and which are solid; mapping windows, back door, is there a cellar? How far do those windows open? How well do the doors close? Are there locks? Bolts?

He is in his shirtsleeves, rolling one up when the shuffling footsteps outside stop. There’s a muffled knock.

“Yes?” hand on his dagger hilt.

“Hot water, sir.” Clearly a young woman’s voice, though God knows how well he knows what little that means.

“Hold on.”

He pulls open the door. A pale, thin, serious-looking young woman with very light auburn hair escaping from her cap and a flushing cleavage. A large, flat-bottomed metal basin, steaming. He takes a moment to appreciate the strength taken to tote that up all the creaking stairs.

“Let me…”

“… oh, I’ll.”

They nearly crack heads.

“Please, sir,” she says, reproachfully.

He backs up, lets her in, lifts his saddlebags onto the bed to make space. She spreads a sheet on the floor and places the basin on it

“Will there be anything more, sir?”

“No, thank you…?”

“Elise, sir.”

“Here’s something for your trouble, Elise.”

“No trouble, sir.” Without smiling once she turns away from his couple of deniers, closes the door.

He strips, fills the ewer with hot water, stands in the basin and begins to wash methodically from the ankles upwards. And it’s all going well until his hands, soap-slippery and warm, begin to slide over his neck and torso. His mind slides in turn to the exquisite, unfinished touches bestowed on him last night, begins to imagine how it would be to have himself entirely bare to d’Artagnan’s gaze and hands.

He loses a good half-minute staring into space, mouth slack.

Shaking his head, he picks up the ewer and sluices still-warm water over his head and shoulders, soaps his hands and works them over his neck and into his hair.

It doesn’t help.

His right hand knows what it’s about. It slides down his torso as his left clutches in his hair vaguely, purpose drifting. Soon enough it joins his right to cup himself as he sets up a groaning, warm, soapy rhythm. Slow and careful and indulgent. Summer afternoon city sounds drift in through the room’s one window, with its unedifying view of encroaching rooftops. A fly buzzes at the entrance. Athos’s head tips a little, teeth grinding on a groan as he enjoys the hard curve of himself, totally in this slippery moment.

He cups his balls a little harder, pulls down a little more firmly, feels his heart start to trip, his head grow light, imagines d’Artagnan’s face, the dark look on it if he could see him now, clean and warm and sliding. He summons the touch of fingertips, lips and sighs, breath heavy, weight growing in the pit of himself as he works and works, his left hand roving now over belly and chest, toying with his nipples, rising to his neck, eyes closed, head back.

Two things happen in quick succession. His feet dance for purchase as his balance starts to spoil, knocking the sides of the basin and flinging his eyes open as there is a knock on the door.

“Y-yes?!” His voice isn’t quite as steady as he’d like.

“Monsieur?”

Elise. “Just a moment,” he calls, and begins to rinse himself as best he can, cursing under his breath. The door handle rattles. He calls out: “Hold on!” grabs his towel from his saddlebags and dries roughly, then wraps his lower body in the first sheet he can lift and stumbles to the door.

No-one. He hears steps going down, moves to the bannister and peers over. “Elise? Hello?”

A half-second’s warning creak is all he has before a hard arm wraps across his collarbone from behind, while something narrow edges his left kidney.

“Easy, monsieur,” says a hoarse voice in his ear. “Let’s back this up to somewhere more private, shall we?”


	4. Arresting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the dynamics of naked fighting are briefly explored.

This is Athos. In the next three seconds he will act decisively and fast, analysing and responding without recourse to thought, as thought is more normally understood.

See that droplet of water sliding off his hair as he bends his head forward? Before it even hits the floor, well.

Observe:

A deep breath in. He sags dramatically to the right, forcing his assailant to take most of his weight.

His left elbow pistons back, hitting leather. His left arm extends, forcing back his assailant’s.

His head goes back, with some force, producing a strangled cry. He raises his right foot and, braced against the bannister, starts the momentum that takes them stumbling backwards together to avoid falling.

The other’s left hand hits the doorframe, and Athos hears with satisfaction a tinkle of metal on the floor.

Inside the bedroom, he whirls out of his sheet and sweeps it over the other’s head, turning and rushing him towards the bed.

The assailant kicks the metal basin, and Athos helps him to trip forward onto the mattress, where he wrenches his left hand behind his back, kneels on it, captures the other flailing hand and binds them both together roughly with a long twist of the sheet that wraps his head and shoulders.

“Listen, you whoreson,” he growls, bent close, “you have two minutes to save your own life. I want to know who sent you and why. You may not know this, but I am a King’s Musketeer, and you are scum - honourless and alone. Don’t think of trying to escape - I beat you single-handed and naked; just think what I can do with a knife in my hand.”

He grabs the saddlebags and strides to the door, flinging it shut and wedging it closed with them as best he can.

He pulls a clean pair of breeches out of the bag and laces himself roughly into them, striding back towards the bed, where his attacker appears to be shaking.

He lays a hand on him and turns him over. The other says “Uff-uff! _Uff-uff!_ ”

He is abruptly weary.

“On your knees, you bastard.” He tugs him to the floor with a thump.

“UFF-UFF!”

He sighs. “Let’s see what we’ve got.” The cloth is quite the tangle, but the best method appears to be to pull from the back to clear down to the man’s chin, then to pull down his hood.

Whereupon he steps back, eyes bulging, one foot clanging into the basin.

“Mother of fuck!”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” says the other, levelly.

“You, you stupid, fucking…”

“Surprise?” shrugs d’Artagnan with a smile.

He is flushed, dishevelled, a little breathless, and has the beginnings of a fine bruise coming up on his cheekbone where the back of Athos’s head struck it. His expression is somewhere between sheepish and mischievous, but he is regaining his calm remarkably quickly.

Athos’s hands are over his nose and mouth and he is staring at d’Artagnan. He pulls them free to say: “I might have killed you!” and seizes the top of his damp crown.

Rue crosses d’Artagnan’s face and those sparkling eyes narrow briefly. “Yeah,” he says slowly. Screws his face up and shrugs again. “Sorry?”

Athos shakes his head slowly, and makes a sound somewhere between a groan and a whimper.

“I’d offer to make it up to you, but… unless you like the idea of me tied up…?” A pause. “Oh, it seems you do…”

Athos stares at him for a moment, flush rapidly mottling his chest and neck. He shakes his head almost imperceptibly again, paces briefly, then strides to the bed, falls to his knees in front of d’Artagnan, and pulls him into his arms, crushing his chest to him, nuzzling his hair and neck, all the while breathing hectically, then pulls his face to him two-handed and kisses him like he was taking his life from those lips.

They continue to kiss. Athos’s hands work down the other’s back until he reaches his hasty knots. After a while he needs to leave off the kissing and peers around his shoulder until he gets the sheet free and then d’Artagnan’s arms are rising in a wide, consuming embrace.

“Ummhnever. Do. That. Mmmhagain. Hear me?”

“Yes. Now shut up.”

Then they are both crumpling the sheet aside, scrabbling at d’Artagnan’s clothes, peeling off the brown cloak, leather jerkin, and white shirt in short order. As d’Artagnan lifts his shirt up, Athos dives in and captures his nipple in frantic teeth and lips. D’Artagnan hisses and moans, the flesh sharpening almost painfully from such attention. He gets the shirt free of his head, but Athos seizes him by the arms, pinning them back in the sleeves of the shirt, summoning a louder moan, a roll of eyes and sag of torso. He roughly mouths that long, bronze neck, licking and sucking as d’Artagnan shudders in his embrace.

He lets go of his arms and seizes his jaw, laying wild, tender kisses all over his face, eyes wide in some kind of desperation. D’Artagnan has his eyes closed, head back, sat on his heels. Athos wonders briefly how this kind of beauty made its way into his life, then helps him strip off the rest of the shirt.

He draws d’Artagnan to his feet and together they loosen first his then d’Artagnan’s breeches and push them down.

Athos is breathing so fast and shallowly that he feels like he might faint; his skin is buzzing and his head swimming, just this side of drunk on the sight of…

_Say it._

his

_Yes._

the sight of 

_Oh._

his lover’s body,

_God_

nearly naked, so close to his own. D’Artagnan is writhing and he takes a second to register that he’s trying to toe off his riding boots. Athos kneels immediately and helps him pull them off, peeling his hose off as he does so.

Stood up again, they pant and sway, stare at each other, a bare inch apart. D’Artagnan swoops in and captures his mouth and now their hands are everywhere, across flanks and backs and shoulders and necks and hair and Athos’s cock is pressed almost painfully against d’Artagnan’s lower belly, feeling d’Artagnan press and rub and moan and pulse and judder against him, eyes closed, breath coming in great gasps, and they’re dear God, dear God in Heaven, so close, fuck, fuck yes. Come on!

There’s a knock on the door.

Athos stares incredulously at d’Artagnan, who shrugs, face convulsing somewhere between hilarity and something even wilder.

The handle rattles.

“Monsieur Boucher?”

D’Artagnan mouths “Boucher?” at him. He scowls back.

“Yes?” he manages, half-turned towards the door, one hand still on d’Artagnan’s shoulder, crotch still locked to his.

“It’s Elise, sir.”

“Right?”

“My mistress sent me to ask: did you want dinner later?”

“Er. Yes?”

“And your guest?”

He stares round at d’Artagnan, who shrugs.

“Yes? Please?”

“Madame says that’ll be extra.”

“Tell Madame I understand.”

“Yes, sir.”

Silence.

“All right, thank you, Elise!”

“Very good, sir.”

Frozen, they wait until her footsteps start to clump down the stairs.

“Right,” says d’Artagnan, “where were we?”

“You,” growls Athos, “are in so. Much. Trouble.”


	5. Continuing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which trouble is explored. So much trouble.

D’Artagnan laughs then yelps briefly as Athos pushes him onto the bed. They gaze at each other a while, just breathing, gazing, heaving, until Athos props one knee to the side of d’Artagnan’s thigh, and falls forward to catch himself on his hands, either side of that golden torso. He then lowers his chest, ever so slowly, letting himself down until his face is hovering over d’Artagnan, whose chin keeps making small, convulsive movements, as though he aches to be kissed. Athos wets his lips, slowly, then moves further down to take his weight on one forearm as he… hovers, a silk cloth width from those lips.

D’Artagnan’s eyebrows quirk upward in the middle, like _please_ , like _now, please_ , and his eyes close as Athos shuts that simmering gap to press a smooth kiss on him. But as soon as his mouth opens fully to it, Athos moves, taking his lips to d’Artagnan’s neck, and gently kisses it, slipping the very tip of his tongue over the smooth skin. D’artagnan moans and writhes, just a little - he can’t help it. The lips move on.

First to his collarbone, leaving a sheen over the bone-stretched satin, then down and across. The other nipple - the one so far untouched, that tents into the diving mouth, the tongue raising rigid ripples from his flesh. On and down - tasting ribs and belly, leaving tiny nips of teeth in its wake - more writhing, more soft moans.

Down and… sideways - a rush of breath nearly like a laugh as he skirts the throbbing cock, lays benedictions down past his hip, Athos sliding his knees to the ground as he pushes d’Artagnan’s thighs to either side and… breathes, wide-mouthed and soft on his sac. D’Artagnan’s cock jumps, a clear, sticky trail drooling onto his belly. Then Athos lays the flat of his tongue on the base of d’Artagnan’s balls and the man lets out the most extraordinary moan.

Athos know he needs to hear that again, needs it like food or air, and so he dives in, lifting d’Artagnan’s thighs to prop them over his shoulders. The other responds by hooking his heels in the side of the bed and pushing up. Athos now has all the access he needs and bathes d’Artagnan’s sac with his tongue, lifting and twirling, laying the softest nips of his teeth on the loose skin at the base of his shaft, feeling those sounds go right to his core.

He lets his tongue drift further south, rewarded by more, deeper, more desperate sounds, tasting the sweat of travel and fear and lust, the strong musk at the base of him and d’Artagnan is pushing up, desperate, and Athos. Athos knows. He knows what d’Artagnan wants, what he showed him in the forest, and he delicately takes first one ball then the other entirely inside his wide mouth before releasing it and letting his tongue drift further down.

It’s a dry, tight, musky, throbbing purse, and every lick he gives it makes both of them tremble. He angles his head to one side, then pushes d’Artagnan’s thighs higher so he can use the firmed tip of his tongue to properly start to push inside.

D’Artagnan makes a noise somewhere between a bark and a wail. Athos looks up as best he can, but cannot see his friend’s face, sees that d’Artagnan has caught up his own knees, is holding himself open to Athos. Athos attacks the throbbing ring, alternating broad, thick swipes of the tongue with more of those gentle, firm pushes.

He feels d’Artagnan’s hand on the back of his head, caressing his hair. He peers up, the time more fully, lets his left hand move in so he can caress with his thumb. D’Artagnan’s face is a picture of abandonment and raw sensuality, his legs pulled back and straining as Athos pushes, a little firmer, a little bolder, feels the flesh start to give, nearly, give, oh, give, just a little further, d’Artagnan’s left hand now on his own cock, right in Athos’s hair, heels hooked to the bed again so he can push. Push that extra fraction of an inch so Athos will be.

“You’re right,” says Athos.

“Hmmm?” say d’Artagnan, high and bewildered. His eyes open. Athos’s face is smiling slightly at him. “Hmm?”

“You’re right,” he repeats, and gets to his feet, hand still engaged. “It’s important to get back to what was happening before someone so rudely interrupted.”

And he pulls away. D’Artagnan’s face is incredulous. Athos, absently sucking his left thumb, steps into the metal basin, pours some tepid water over his torso, and takes his right hand to himself.

Within seconds, his eyes start to shutter, and his teeth clench together. He is even more aroused than he thought he was. His head goes back, lost to the sensation of his own clutching hands.

He hears the mattress move, a tiny cough. He opens his eyes as well as he can and sees d’Artagnan, legs down the side of the bed, propped up on his elbows, gazing at Athos, his own erection barely deflated.

“Athos,” he says, reproachfully, as his eyes start to close again, swept in the rhythm of himself, “are you trying to kill me?”

Athos grins, starts another long blink. “Merely… uhn… getting back to… hmmbusiness…”

“Oh…” a pause. “So that’s why she was stooped to the keyhole so long…”

“ _What?!_ ” he yelps, opens his eyes wide to see his lover’s face slanted in a wicked grin. “All right,” he says, as dryly as he can manage, closing them again and starts to be firmer with himself. He hears a juddering sigh and the bed creak again, and feels a palm on either hip. “Uh-uh,” he says, unsteadily, “I’m all, mmh, clean, and I don’t think your h-hands are clean ennnough…”

A soft chuff of laughter. His hips are freed. “All right, then I won’t use my hands…” and that softness he’s revisited in memory for two long weeks engulfs his cock again without warning, leaving him gasping.

“Oh! Oh _God!_ ”

D’Artagnan hums in agreement and it’s all he can do to stay upright. His hips start to pulse back and forth ahead of his volition, his throat keening with every thrust, feeling himself harden even further, stretching his lover’s mouth.

His right foot slips and he teeters, eyes popping wide, right arm flailing. D’Artagnan disengages swiftly, says: “Step out to your right.” He does, the other scoots over, and Athos watches him lean forward on his knees, hands behind his back, and carefully place his mouth around Athos. He rolls his eyes upwards at him, manages to smile slightly, then… _focuses._

Soon they are rocking together again, and Athos knows it’s soon. He reaches out and slams his hand against the slanting ceiling truss, gripping the old, dark wood for dear life as he feels himself gathering, tautening, and 

“Ah! Ah, God, oh, fucking God! Ah!”

He tries to force his eyes open, feels them roll, leans desperately against the truss and feels his hips still rock minutely as he pulses and throbs in d’Artagnan’s mouth, whose tongue is still moving, lazy and lapping, gathering everything.

“May I touch you?”

“Hunh?”

“My hands - may I touch you?” he says, patiently.

“Yes! Yes. Yesyoumay.”

One firm hand where his hip meets his thigh, the other a silk-light stroke up the underside of his balls to prop his cock as it’s released. He is still quite firm, and exquisitely sensitive. He shudders once, all over, and feels his knees start to give.

And d’Artagnan’s chest is against his, taking some weight, drawing him to the bed, laying him down, lifting his legs to pivot him into a better position. He curls up on his side and waves his free hand, beckoning spasmodically.

“I know, I know,” says a slightly amused voice, and he feels a warm chest curl into his back, an arm go across his collarbone.

“Thisis nicerrrthan beforearm meyou.”

“Yup.”

“Mmmh.”

“Exactly.”


	6. Cuisine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which linguistics and traditional eating methods are briefly discussed.

Athos’s body fish-hook-thrashes and his eyes pop open. “Hmmnawake?!”

He hears a chuckle, feels an arm tighten about him. “Apparently so.”

“Mmmmn,” he says, rolling his shoulders and hips into the warm flesh behind him.

“Mmmh!” agrees d’Artagnan, and there’s a ticking hardness lodged behind him, just above his buttocks. He feels his whole body flush slowly, deliberately grinds back onto him, is answered by the sweetest groan. They continue like this for a few minutes, d’Artagnan’s sounds becoming gradually more guttural, his thrusts a little faster. He bites softly into Athos’s shoulder, and Athos is astonished at the almost begging tone he makes in response. Soon d’Artagnan is mouthing with barely restrained passion at Athos’s neck and shoulder until Athos can bear it no longer and turns abruptly in his arms to kiss him, hard, his own member wakening and thickening shyly between them.

He slides a thigh between d’Artagnan’s, is rewarded by a leg hooking around his own. His heart kicks and he feels something almost like fear knife through him, remembering his all-too-vivid fantasies of a few weeks ago: the two of them, on a bed like this, thighs interlocking, grappling in their redoubling heat.

His rhythm falters. Or maybe his fingers dig a little too deep into d’Artagnan’s sides. Whichever it is, the other’s eyes open and gaze into his, blurred but concerned. “Everything all right?” he murmurs, and smiles.

And it is. Athos grins back and says: “Hungry?”

D’Artagnan smirks. “Hmm.  _ Yes. _ ”

“Good.” And he disentangles himself, pushes himself up over d’Artagnan, who rolls to his back. He straddles him briefly, feeling that gorgeous incongruity of their bodies together - the softnesses and hardnesses reflected, then swings off him.

“Hmm?” says d’Artagnan as Athos picks up his breeches, stuffs himself into them, and laces rapidly, while looking for his boots. There.

“Athos?”

He yanks them on without hose - no-one will notice - then crosses to the door to rummage for his clean shirt.

“Athos, what are you doing?”

“Back shortly,” he says brightly, pushes back the saddlebags and opens the door.

“I was wrong!” calls d’Artagnan. “It’s yourself you’re trying to get killed!”

Downstairs is still quiet, the few afternoon drinkers nodding in the comparative cool of the ground floor, while foot traffic swelters by. The air is sultry, less intense but less fresh than upstairs.

Seeing none of the family, he pushes through to the back, following his nose to the kitchen.

“Monsieur Boucher?” says Madame Beaulieu, meeting him in the corridor with a one-sided frown. “Can I help you?”

He gives her one of his best smiles. “I was wondering - could I have some bread?”

“Bread?”

“Yes, and some oil.”

“Oil?”

He nods, still smiling. “Please.”

She frowns some more. “No cookin in the rooms.”

“I have no intention of cooking. Just after some food for my slightly disorganised friend.”

“Will he be stayin?”

“Yes. Will that be extra?”

“No.” She bustles into the kitchen, starts fetching things from cupboards. “Don’t meet so many Frenchmen who eat just bread and oil…”

“My mother was a Béarnaise.”

She squints at him. “You have Northern eyes.”

He nods. It’s true. She starts to cut a loaf of white bread, looks up. “Two? Three?”

“Two, please.”

There’s a clatter. He forces himself to look up slowly. Elise scuffs into the kitchen with two buckets, tendrils of red-gold hair sticking to her forehead. Her head goes up and her eyes go wide. He catches them with his and just stares. Hooked, she stares back, colour mounting. He raises one eyebrow while hers go up in the middle, breath coming short.

“Elise!” says Madame Beaulieu, and the buckets clump and clatter to the floor. “Make yourself useful, girl, and stop… What’s the word?” she asks, crossly.

“Dawdling?” suggests Athos, still staring, a sardonic expression curdling him.

“No, with the eyes.”

“Gawking?”

“What’s that?” he sees her look up in his periphery.

“Like this,” and he lets his jaw drop open, pokes his head forward a little.

“Hah!” she puts the bread on the plate. “Elise! Stop  _ gawkin  _ and fetch me olive oil and vinegar.” She looks up at Athos, who has let Elise go. “The Italians eat it like this.”

“Sounds wonderful, madame,” says Athos, “but, ah,” he says hurriedly, “not this time.”

She shrugs. “As you wish. Just the oil?”

“As you say.”

Elise, radiating heat and sullenness, clomps in with a small dish of olive oil, and scurries to the back.

He puts a hand to his waist and remembers. “Could you please add this to my bill?”

She waves her hand. “Just don’t spoil your appetite.”

“I won’t,” he assures her, and scoops up the bread and the oil before she can offer Elise’s services.

“What will you do this evenin?” asks Madame Beaulieu, as he strides away.

“Hmm?”

“With your friend.”

“Oh. Er, I thought we’d go out, see the sights?”

“Yes,” she says. “Sometimes we have a musician, but not tonight, I think.”

“Oh?” he shortens his stride for politeness sake, feels the restraint itch at his muscles. Her voice stays level behind him.

“Yes, you maybe want to see other things.”

“I’ll be sure to ask for some recommendations.”

“We have a theatre or two. Bit expensive.”

“Mm-hm?”

“Also some other taverns, they have music. The Three Lilies is nice. But not Chanticleer, I think.”

“Hmm?” He frowns, head turning a little.

“Not nice boys like you.”

“Right.”

They reach the main parlour. Monsieur Beaulieu has returned to his station, and is scratching himself through a fine yawn.

“Marisa! What’ve you been doing with this young lad?”

“Nothing you’d remember,” she says, bumping him with her shoulder.

“Ah, youth,” sighs the philosopher.

“Until later,” nods Athos, and makes his way upstairs.

On entering the bedroom, his stride stutters. D’Artagnan has propped himself up against the wall with a generous helping of pillows behind him, and is lazily stroking himself.

He kicks the door shut and manages to make it across the room in a couple of strides, without spilling anything.

“What have you got there?” asks d’Artagnan, eyes half-closed with pleasure. The sun is reflecting off the white walls and he is reflecting some of it back. He looks like a being made of summer and Athos is briefly afraid again.

“Bread,” he says, swallowing the fear.

“Bread?” with a slanting grin.

“Yes. We’re going to eat it in the traditional manner - with oil and salt.”

“You brought oil and salt?”

“Nearly.” He puts the plate on the bed. “Bread,” he says. “Oil,” then dips his fingers in the pot and trails some into the small hollow just above d’Artagnan’s belly. “And salt.”

“Oh…”


	7. Consuming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is bread. And oil. And salt.

He tears the bread, dips the bread, offers the bread. D’Artagnan’s face is a prize of warring emotions, especially when Athos reaches past his outstretched hand to press the bread into his mouth himself. D’Artagnan’s lips brush his fingertips as he bites to leave a fragment in his hand.

Athos’s resolve nearly breaks at this point. He can see himself, clear as daylight, sending everything flying to launch onto the body before him, clamps down hard, smiles, dips the fragment, presses it into d’Artagnan’s mouth where a warm tongue caresses him briefly.

Now he takes a piece for himself, dipping, lifting it to his lips, seeing d’Artagnan’s eyes follow his hand. He can actually taste, faint but perfect, his lover’s salted flesh on the bread and he dips again, greedy, swirling and mopping.

D’Artagnan, silent, solemn somehow, reaches, tears, dips to himself, and offers now. Athos has to lean to receive it, and finds that d’Artagnan has picked a rather small piece, which he lifts wholesale into Athos’s mouth, lets his finger graze tongue, teeth, and lower lip on the way out.

Athos feels himself surging inside, watches d’Artagnan tear, dip, feed himself, hears his breathing growing heavier.

D’Artagnan looks him full in the eyes. “There’s not much oil left,” gestures with a small quirk of a smile.

Athos keeps his face still, serious. “Well,” he says, and tilts a slightly larger amount into his chest and abdomen. It hesitates, then runs over the sides of that small hollow to leave trails in three directions. Athos, throbbing and now feeling overdressed, wipes upward with more bread from d’Artagnan’s lower abdomen, rewarded by a sigh that edges on a moan. As he reaches towards d’Artagnan’s mouth, his hand is seized and pulled to where d’Artagnan takes the morsel and three of his fingers inside himself, licking and sucking with strong strokes of his tongue.

When he is released, Athos feels dazed. And far too hot.

“You’re wearing too much,” says d’Artagnan. He smiles. “And, in case I wasn’t clear with that, I mean: take off your shirt.”

Placing the oil dish on the floor, he peels off his shirt and dumps it, chest humming, cocks his head as if to say: _good enough?_

“For now,” says d’Artagnan. Then he gestures at himself again. “Are you going to help clear this up?”

Athos can’t help but grin at that, but clamps down on it to make it seem cynical. He reaches forward towards the plate, then places the flat of his right hand on d’Artagnan’s belly and smoothes it upwards to his chest, leaving a gleaming wash behind. D’Artagnan gasps, amusement cut from under him, and arches up into Athos’s touch. Athos leans a little of his weight on his right, then, his friend effectively pinned, strokes the rest of the oil down his belly and beneath his straining prick with his left. The Gascon arcs as well as he can under Athos’s restraint, moans, eyes shut now, mouth closed but a little slack.

And suddenly Athos can’t restrain himself any longer, lifts his left hand and strokes hard on d’Artagnan’s cock. The man cries out, then takes the ball of his own thumb and bites on it to muffle himself. Yet again, Athos is struck with a shiver of having seen this in his mind’s eye before, fights down the panic by dipping his head to enclose the head of his friend’s cock with his lips, hearing whimpers burst from d’Artagnan’s throat as he bucks into him.

The salt-sweetness he’s longed for this while is now scented with olive oil, and he thinks he’s never enjoyed a taste so much as he pulls and sucks, letting d’Artagnan set his own rhythm. After a while he comes up for air, sees the writhing body and again feels like his next move has been pulled from him. He releases his grip, lays his hand gently for a moment on d’Artagnan’s belly then pulls the flats of both hands down his sides to grasp his hips.

“Turn over,” he says, his voice coming out cracked and low. d’Artagnan only hesitates a bare moment before squirming to comply. Athos dips his fingers in the oil, anoints both hands and runs them down d’Artagnan’s back. D’Artagnan lets out the groan of a man who was in the saddle only an hour or so before, for many miles. He rubs deep into the long muscles of his friend’s back, leaning his weight on the heels of his hands. He feels d’Artagnan relax, start to melt.

He does not want him to melt. Not yet. Not like this. He alters his angle, sets his right hand to stroke up to just below his shoulder blades, while his left ventures further down, to cup and stroke his buttocks. And he can’t resist. He moves both hands to fondle, starts to lay kisses, then licks and bites on the firm flesh, feeling d’Artagnan writhe anew, melting forgotten.

He dips his right hand for a touch more oil, which he drips into the crack between the man’s buttocks. D’Artagnan grows still, breath heaving, as Athos anoints the middle fingers of his left hand, dips in between the cleft to rub and circle. D’Artagnan, as he foresaw, pushes back toward him now, a pulsing, rocking movement that he doubts is entirely voluntary. This time he is going to reward that urge. This time…

“Do you want this?” he whispers.

“Ohhh,” moans d’Artagnan, muffled into pillows. He turns his head, says: “Yes. Oh, yes.”

“Tell me.”

“Oh, God.”

Athos is relentless: “Tell me what you want me to do.”

“I want. Ohh. I want to feel you inside me.”

“In _here_?” he pushes, gently.

“Mmmh. Oh God, yes. _Please._ ”

The _please_ nearly undoes him. His heart unsteady in his chest, he moves that extra fraction of an inch and… enters him.

He lets out his own groan at the heat, the pulsation of it, then bites down on a cry as d’Artagnan, head turned so he can see his lower lip tucked under his teeth, pushes himself further around him.

On an instinct he turns his hand, slowly, so that the soft pad of his finger is facing downwards, and pushes a little further in. D’Artagnan is breathing like a man about to pass out, and Athos can feel that racing pulse gathering around his finger. He leans, trickles a little more oil, eases it into him, feels the most extraordinary textures ebb and flow against his skin.

Soon, he is in past the second knuckle, feeling d’Artagnan start to buck a little against him. Again, he lets him set the pace, sitting, holding, bracing, quiet and awe-struck.

It takes a couple of minutes to notice what’s wrong. And then, once he sees it, he can’t unsee it. His mind is quiet, cool, held apart from the scene he’s witnessing rather than engaged in. He feels an awful sense like mourning, tries to bury it, then says _no: what is this?_

And he’s remembering - seeing… 

_No, don’t._

I have to.

seeing _her_ buck against his fingers, face abstracted, him… facilitating, not participating, being part of bringing her but… as an object, as something holding itself still against the rhythm of her high tide waves, cliff face, shore. Her reaching to him, saying: “Where are you? I can’t find you.” Him grave, wanting to be. To be there. To.

He feels.

_No._

There is something.

_No._

His face is.

_No._

He is. Maybe. Is this a tear?

_Sweet Jesus._

And

_Come back_

_Come back to me_

He is here now, and wrenching one-handed at the points of his breeches, realising the difficulty of, the impossibility of.

“D’Artagnan?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to withdraw…”

“… oh…”

“… just for a moment, I _swear_.”

He withdraws as softly as he can, then tears into his boots and breeches, flinging them off as fast as possible, pours a little oil into the small of d’Artagnan’s back and smoothes it down to caress again.

And now. Now he knocks the plate to the floor and lays down, half on his lover, left hand busy, braced by the thigh he’s slotted between d’Artagnan’s legs and he’s pressing himself against d’Artagnan’s right side, who cries out a little at the heat and weight, and again as Athos starts to bite into the flesh behind his shoulders.

“Do you want this?” he mutters. “Is this what you want?”

“Oh yes,” he moans. “Oh God, yes.” Then: “Athos?”

“Y-yes?”

“Can I? I…”

“W-what?”

“I wwwant. I want m- _more_. Please?”

“Oh, God,” he mutters, and, slicking his ring finger as efficiently as he can, pushes into him, spreading him, feeling him flutter and clutch, feeling the vibration of his muffled cry through his back.

And he can’t wait any longer, not one more minute. He pulls out again briefly, feels the flesh snap back, hears d’Artagnan’s low cry, and he’s turning him over onto his back, fingers going, now freshly slicked, to enter him again, and d’Artagnan is heaving in his arms, crying out into his mouth, his lips losing traction as Athos plunges into him, then bends and engulfs him with lapping tongue and pulling lips.

D’Artagnan swells an impossible amount, then spends himself, hard into the back of Athos’s throat, filling the room with his sobbing cries.


	8. Breathing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which time is filled, with a promise of other things...

“Shh, shhh…” he murmured as d’Artagnan collapsed against him. He turned onto his side, hooked his right arm under the other’s shoulders and held him close against his chest where d’Artagnan shuddered and made gulping whimpers that gradually faded out.

He, very slowly, infinitely gently, started to pull his fingers free, while d’Artagnan’s body grasped and pulsed against him. First the ring finger, then the middle, and he laid the pads of his fingers gently against that place for a moment before slowly pulling his arm up.

D’Artagnan immediately turned his hips and wrapped his right leg over him. Startled and somewhat undone, Athos stroked his palm down the length of d’Artagnan’s flank several times, gentling him, hearing his breathing unhitch, and feeling his muscles give way with a soft crash.

He sounded asleep. Athos held him for a little longer, eyes closed, heart a little wild, then tipped him gently to rest on his back and stood up.

Slightly reluctantly, he looked at his left hand. It looked… clear, actually. Still, he fetched the soap and washed his hands, paying attention to his fingernails, then turned and placed the loose sheet that had bound him earlier over d’Artagnan, who muttered and stirred, but did not rouse. Next, he put his clean clothes back on, and carried the bath to the door, where he left it and the rather wet sheet on the landing. He hung his towel out of the window, and moved what remained of the bread and oil to the small table near it.

He then transferred everything from the pockets of his riding breeches to the clean ones, and paced for a short while, winding his watch absently before returning it to his pocket.

He could hear d’Artagnan clearly, and each slow, deep exhalation ran across his skin.

After some internal debate, he fetched a book from his bags, and sat, determinedly reading as the sun mellowed, then snuck behind an outcrop of roof.

The room began to cool a little, and d’Artagnan stirred.

“How long was I asleep?”

“An hour and fourteen minutes.”

“Ah. Oh!” a sharp hiss inward and a stirring of cloth and skin. Athos’s jaw clenched for a second. “That’s… new…”

A rustling pause. “What are you reading?”

“Herodotus.”

“In French?”

“Greek. It’s slow going.”

“I can imagine.”

“Hmm.”

“Athos…”

“Yes?”

“Why won’t you look at me?”

His heart clenched. He laid the book down on the table, laid his palms along its edges, kept his eyes down.

A breath. “Because…” they said together.

“After you,” said d’Artagnan, a trifle quicker in response.

Another breath. “Because, if you’re really here, I’m terribly afraid that I’ll never leave this room.”

“Then,” said d’Artagnan, with a cheerful jounce of joists, “you should definitely look up,” a small thump, “shouldn’t you?”

And, in a rush, he did.

There sat d’Artagnan, legs crossed at the ankles, arms propping him to either side, sheet puddled at his hip, that long, slanting smile across him, bronze against the dull white of the bed and walls.

Athos’s chest hitched once, twice; he got to his feet, and slowly walked over.

D’Artagnan gazed at him, then reached up, took his right hand gently from his hip and held it against his chest. His fingertips twitched a little, examining the texture of that impossible skin.

“See? My heart is beating beneath a solid breast. I am absolutely and utterly here.”

“I’m doomed,” he murmured.

“Completely,” nodded his friend, briskly, “and me with you. It’s a tragedy.”

He pursed his lips briefly. “I can’t argue with that.”

“Do you think they’ll write an epic poem?”

“It would seem inevitable,” he agreed, gravely.

“Odes?” 

“And ballads both.” 

“What will it take to have you kiss me?”

He considered. “Standing up, for a start. I’m not as young as once I was.”

“You still seem pretty spry to me, Monsieur Boucher.”

“Oho…”

D’Artagnan stood, quickly, arm clenching to keep Athos’s straining hand on him. “My kiss?”

He wrapped his free hand in the hair behind the Gascon’s head. “Ask nicely.”

“ _Mmn_.” The other’s breath coming suddenly hard. “Athos. Oh. Please. Mmh. _Please_ kiss me.” 

“Better,” and drew him in close.

Slow, sweet, and bright, that’s how he reconfigured it for himself, again and again, much later, his left hand in d’Artagnan’s hair, d’Artagnan’s right lightly about his waist, their other hands now clasped, fingers interweaved, between them, until even that much space apart was too great, and d’Artagnan’s melted upwards, to caress the nape of his neck, and he stroked his lover’s arm, over and over, drawing his scent deep inside him.

Somewhere, something was happening. Here, eyes closed, swaying in the fading light of a long afternoon, the world turned in tiny sighs, the sacred susurrus of flesh on flesh, the creak of wood underfoot, the slow tick of the still-warm roof.

“Uff-uff…”

“Hmmm…?”

“Mmuffos, listen!”

“Hmm? No…”

A gentle chuckle, a jink within his arms. He opened his eyes. “Hmm?” he said again, a little woebegone.

“Aww… no, come on.”

“Ugh, what.”

Leaning back at a laughing angle. “The dinner gong?” 

“Oh.” He cocked his head. “I suppose so.” 

“And I’m _actually_ hungry this time.”

“Damn. I thought we were doomed to be trapped in this room forever…”

“Maybe later, when I’m full…”

“Oh, I’ll fill you,” he growled, and felt himself start to blush. Where had _that_ come from?

D’Artagnan’s smile dropped inwards and he stopped his game of escaping Athos’s arms. “Is that a promise?” 

“Jesus,” he groaned, and brought him in for a crushing kiss.

The gong sounded again. They peeled apart slowly and stood, still breathing heavily.

“You need to put your boots on,” said d’Artagnan. “They’ll never let you into the parlour like that.”

Athos laughed so hard at this he felt tears spurt from his eyes. When his vision cleared, d’Artagnan was nearly dressed. “Damn,” he murmured.

“Get your boots on, or I’ll eat yours.”

“That’s an awful choice to offer a man…” 

“ _Boots!_ ”

“Yes, Captain.” 


	9. Walking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which hornets are unwelcome.
> 
> (CW: graphic depiction of panic. Breathe.)

“This is nice.”

“Really?”

“Well, I like chicken.”

“There’s chicken?”

D’Artagnan stared at his friend, then rolled his eyes and tucked back in.

“You really are hungry.”

“I really am.” A shovelling hiatus. Athos hid a small grin and set himself to eating.

“Whatshish caw?”

“I’m sorry?”

He cleared his mouth and throat. “Sorry. What’s this called?”

Athos frowned at him. “Chicken bean stew.”

“Right.”

“Are you all right?”

“I really like food.”

Athos couldn’t help a smile breaking out. “You really do.”

D’Artagnan briefly stuck out a tongue and reapplied himself to his plate.

“You want more?”

Athos mopped his lips with the napkin. “No thank you, Madame.”

“This boy didn’t spoil his appetite then.”

“You know young men, Madame.”

She frowned briefly. “You’re not so old yourself, you know. Water?”

“Yes please.”

“Wine?”

“Er. What do you have?”

“Wine.”

“Right. No thank you.”

“Sure.” She walked away to talk to other diners. He looked down to see d’Artagnan gazing at him.

“What?”

He swallowed. “Since when were you fussy about wine?”

Since thoughts of you consumed me. “I thought it was time to… moderate my habits.”

D’Artagnan raised an eyebrow over a disbelieving half-smile that abruptly turned dangerously warm.

I swear I would go to Hell for that glint in your eyes.

Athos shook his head slowly but could not suppress an answering smile that he suspected looked like a smirk. He took a couple of forkfuls of chicken bean stew (with optional chicken) to bury it, then reached for the bread at the same time as d’Artagnan who, definitely smirking, tore it in two and offered him a portion. Their fingers grazed as he took it.

He felt his heart pound, and not entirely from desire. He was awash with heat and cold again - feverish. The cold is spreading tendrils through from the place between his shoulder blades, reaching for his stomach. The chatter around them becomes loud and somehow penetrative. He can’t shake the needles of people’s attention. He knows at one and the same time that probably no-one is looking at him, at him and, and d’Artagnan. It is tavern-dark, despite the sun of an early summer evening, and people are engaged in their own business.

And yet hornet prickles are settling on him, on his arms, his chest, his belly, his neck; they move in his mouth and ears. A crawling, nuzzling crowd, a pin’s width from danger. Maybe. Maybe if he moves slowly.

-s

Maybe actually stays very still

-os.

If only he can control his breathing.

-os!

It’s stubborn. Shallow, but still perceivable movement.

-thos!

You can hold your breath.

-os

Hold your breath, boy.

-thos!

How long can you hold your breath?

I need to stay still. I can’t if you’re shaking me.

_Athos!_

( _shit!_ )

There’s no-one here.

Shhh.

No.

Shhh!

An arm.

There’s

Warm and

An arm

I

“Armand?”

Hmmm.

“Armand? Can you hear me?”

“Hmmm?”

“Armand?” Quieter: “Athos?”

What is wha

Wha

I

Hmmm.

“Yes, hmmmm…”

“Hmmm.”

“Hmmmm,” almost sung.

“Hmm?”

“Hello?”

He looks around, neck creaking. He narrows his eyes. “D’Artagnan?” his voice is a thread.

“Charles,” says the other, “Dumas, remember?”

“Oh.”

“Armand.”

“Armand Boucher.”

“Yes.”

“Me.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“Are you back?”

“I’m not… sure…”

“Hmmmm.”

“Hm-m-mm.”

“Would you like to get out of here?”

“Um. Yes. Yes please.”

“Up you get, then.”

“D’A-Charles… I’m not. I can.”

“Sure you can. I’m just… Look, humour me, will you?”

“Hmmm.”

“Right.”

His vision is clearing and he can see more of what’s around him, hear the hush. D’Artagnan’s hand is on his shoulder, and he’s waiting. He looks like he could wait all evening, a small smile on him. His hand is warm. So warm. He wishes he would put it in the still-cold place between his shoulder blades, put another on his frozen throat.

“Can you see the door?”

“Yes,” he says, wishes he could snatch back the snap and growl of the response.

The occasional glance darts his way, mayfly, blowfly. He tunes it all out, tunes out the murmuring, just focuses on the door. As he passes the nearest-but-one table to the door, something holds his wrist. There’s a warning murmur from d’Artagnan behind him. He looks down at the cold spot on his arm and then further, into a rheumy pair of eyes.

“Been in the wars?”

“Beg pardon, monsieur?” His voice creaks.

“Been in the wars.” It’s a statement. “Know that look. You want a brandy.”

“Ohhh, yes.”

“Ohhh, no,” says d’Artagnan, almost as quickly. “No, we’re going to go for a walk, clear my friend’s head. Then… _maybe_ … a brandy later.”

“Your friend,” says the old man, “has either drunk too much or not enough.”

“Let’s see,” says d’Artagnan, with what sounds like a set jaw, “what we can do about that.”

He gently tugs Athos’s wrist free and then

Air

Street

Still light but

Kinder

Kinder light.

The pavement breathes the day’s warmth

The

It’s.

“Breathe.”

He takes a deep, steadying breath.

“And again, come on.”

Breath.

“Another deep one.”

His chest expands, his throat clangs open and he is filled. The hornets abandon him. His legs abruptly unstiffen and he staggers.

D’Artagan’s hands are there to help lower him to the ground and he sits, head between his hands, elbows propped on his knees, just.

Breathing.

The wall is warm on his back and he rolls his shoulders into, remembers the other warmth he rolled them into mere… hours? Before.

And smiles.

A rush of breath and a slide of cloth beside him. D’Artagnan plumped to the ground, knees up, forearms across them, peered at Athos.

“Good to see that.”

“Good to see you.”

D’Artagnan’s answering smile held a brief hint of being a trifle too wide then settled in his eyes.

“I think,” said Athos, “I’d like that walk now.”

D’Artagnan took a breath, sent it out, took another, then said: “Come on then,” and sprang to his feet.

Athos rolled his eyes above a wry smile, grasped the offered hand and groaned himself up in turn. “Where do you recommend?”

“Have you ever been here before?”

“Er, only in the loosest sense…”

“I see… Well, let’s head south for the river and see what happens.”

“Done.”

After a few quiet minutes of strolling, Athos said: “Damn.”

“What?”

“I left my sword in the bedroom.”

“Do you want to go back and get it?”

“No-ooo…”

“All right. But you have your dagger.”

“Of course.”

“Good.”

And that was that for the moment.

It was when they reached the river that Athos decided that he liked Orléans. It was a more watchful place than Paris, but it had spaces a man could take a chestful of air that belonged to everyone. And the river smelled better.

He found himself trying to explain this to d’Artagnan: “You can hear yourself think here. But not…” they were pushed past by a troupe of chortling youths, “ _too_ much…”

D’Artagnan smiled. “It’s a bit serious - all right, them excepted - though, don’t you think? A little reserved. Paris… there’s always something happening.”

“That’s what I mean.”

After a while, d’Artagnan said: “Do you miss it?”

“What, Paris? It’s been less than a d…”

“No,” he said, quietly, “your… old place.”

Athos felt his nostrils flare, his eyes narrow, just once. “No,” he said, even quieter. He forced his jaw open and asked, blandly: “You?”

“Sometimes,” said the other. “But. It’s not… it wouldn’t be the same…”

“It’s not home without him.”

D’Artagnan stops, gazes at him. “Yes.”

They stand for a while, just looking at each other, the setting sun gilding Athos’s face, giving d’Artagnan a corona.

Athos can feel a smile trying his face out, his lips moving. He thinks he must look as though he’s at prayer. He is in no way sure that he is not. He closes his eyes and, still with that new smile in him, reaches forward gently with an upturned palm, arm crooked.

He is answered with a touch that rings in him, a fingertip moment that chases away the last of the crawling cold. He opens his eyes to see, dappled by river coins of sunset, the face that can crack his being from end to end, smiling, the same questioning, answering joy brimming from it.

He nods. D’Artagnan nods, his face slanting and his eyes dipping suddenly. Athos is willing to bet, for once, that his lover is blushing.

“Come on,” he says, shedding weights with every words, “let’s explore a little more.”

Another nod. “All right.”

“Besides,” says Athos as d’Artagnan draws alongside him, “I think I can guarantee a little more excitement shortly.”

“Oh yes?”

“Well, we appear to be being followed.”


	10. Restraining

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some different viewpoints are explored.

“Ah,” says d’Artagnan, smiling. “How wonderful.”

Athos frowns at him.

D’Artagnan widens his eyes and flicks his eyebrows: _go on, play along_.

Athos smiles back. In some ways, this isn’t hard. “Yes. So I’m thinking we stroll along for another quarter of an hour or so, and then the usual.”

D’Artagnan’s eyes narrow briefly at this, but he continues with a bouncy gait and gestures eloquent of enthusiasm. “Really?”

“Well, yes.”

“Well, I was just wondering if now is the time to stick to tradition.”

“Well, it’s just…”

“Keep smiling…”

Deadpan, he says: “I’m not a smiler.”

“We’re going to have to see what we can do about that, you know.”

Athos feels a surge of entirely inappropriate heat that hitches his step momentarily. D’Artagnan folds a warm smile at this and he narrows his eyes above one of his own. His friend narrows his own eyes back above an irrepressible smirk and they both laugh.

“See?”

“Oh, hush.”

They speed up together by maybe half a beat. For a rushing moment Athos forgets everything except how much he wants to hurry with d’Artagnan back to the bedroom, shut everyone away and seize that long, lean body to his own. He sees, with wild clarity, him throwing d’Artagnan against… that wall, there, right now, kicking aside those broken spars, pushing into him, hands in his hair, a careless public devouring. He can see the shock and fierce glee in d’Artagnan’s face, feel his hands clutching his back, hear his…

He breathes out, hard, closes his eyes for the inhale, steadies his steps.

“Everything all right?”

He tosses his head, smiles right into his eyes, a heated challenge. He sees d’Artagnan’s gaze go wide with understanding, sees the flush begin at his collarbone.

“Oh, very.”

“Mmh,” says d’Artagnan, managing to turn it into a throat-clearing.

They walk on in silence for a while.

“Uh,” says d’Artagnan, who sounds like he has a lot on his mind, “not that I mind too much, but we should probably slow a little, make sure they can keep up with us.”

Athos nods. “Let’s take in the view.”

They turn and stroll closer to the river, gaze into the twinkling landscape. In truth it is not spectacularly edifying at this point, but there is a strange, be-treed sandbar to soften the glare, and Athos points to some imaginary things of interest on the far side while keeping up a gentle murmur with d’Artagnan, who nods and smiles and disagrees enthusiastically.

“Fascinating! (I don’t see why we always do it the same way, is all…)”

“And that’s where the troops made landing during the campaign… (Why not?)”

“(It’s just…)”

“(Yes…?) Of course, it’s a newer bridge now, which makes sense.”

“(Why does it always have to be me who’s bait?) Why didn’t they come in at the east again?”

“Oh, well, they did. As well. (It’s just that you look, you know…)”

“(If you’re going to say ‘more harmless’, can I remind you which of us has a sword right now?) Do you want to go look at the Cathedral?”

He frowns. “We’ve seen the Cathedral.”

“Yes, but not with the sun setting. Do you think they’ll let us inside?” D’Artagnan tugs at him and he peels reluctantly from the shore to follow him towards a narrow wind that led to the tangle of tiny roads between the Cathedral and the river.

“I don’t know if I want to see the Cathedral. (Are you sure about this?)”

“Heathen! It’s splendid.”

“It’s _going to be_ splendid.”

“Exactly. (And I’ll just remind you who got the drop on whom earlier.)”

“I’m getting tired, is all. I want a drink.”

“Yes, but then I won’t be able to get a word of sense out of you, and then I’ll have to carry you home.”

“Ugh! (Don’t overdo it…)”

“Come on! (Come on…)”

“Fine! (And I’ll just remind _you_ who got trussed up by whom earlier.)”

“Fine!”

*  *  *

To the casual observer, this is what happens next:

The two men head into the warren of back roads, the younger (and marginally taller) taking the lead, the other demonstrating a reluctance bordering on belligerence. They weave around, looking increasingly lost, the longer-haired youngster occasionally making side-forays down even narrower alleys while the older, bearded fellow stands still with his hands on his hips looking up at the sky, or with his arms crossed, looking at his feet.

Eventually, they pass a small, disreputable-looking tavern. The older doubles back and dives inside. The younger goes on ahead for a few paces, looks behind and casts around, then stands, looking uncertain, playing with the hilt of his sword. He then follows his fellow inside. The casual observers hear several raised voices and a clash of metal.

The younger man storms out, hair flying. The older is nowhere to be seen. A casual observer can peer in and see him propped against the bar.

After a while he comes out, slightly unsteadily, with a tankard. He puts something on the ground, leans against the wall, one foot cocked behind him, and drinks steadily, occasionally looking up and muttering.

He is approached by various people of uneasy virtue, all of whom he ignores solidly, occasionally lifting the bottle and pouring it into his cup. At one point he toasts an imaginary (or at least invisible) being.

After two refills he stops using the cup and goes straight for the bottle. He has both feet on the ground now, and his knees are sagging.

The casual observer is just deciding that it's dark enough after all, when an arm goes across his throat and a pricking sensation appears at his right kidney.

“Step back gently, monsieur. We’re going to find a nice, quiet place to chat.”

The observer is now feeling a lot less casual, but decides to follow his new friend’s advice.

Around the corner is a dank yard with a depressed tree that may once have held olives, and an amount of unpleasant undergrowth. There is a strong suggestion of cats.

“Ow!”

“Shut up,” says the man with the knife. There are footsteps. In the tree-blocked twilight, he makes out a familiar bushy head - the bearded man.

“Shit!”

“Hush,” says beardy, while his companion pushes him down to his knees.

“Ow!”

The bearded man sighs - short and heavy. He reaches out to the observer’s neck, who finds he has nowhere to flinch to, the man’s companion standing so close behind. The big fellow flicks the observer’s neck cloth off with an expression of mild disgust, and tosses it over the observer’s shoulder to the man behind him.

“Tie him.”

“Got it.” In very short order his hands are tied behind his back.

“Name.”

“Fuck off.”

He gets a cuff around the head from behind. Whatever.

“Name.”

“Fuck you.”

Another cuff, heavier.

“Name.”

“Fu-” and the drunk is standing right in front of him, dagger point held three fingers’ width from his left eye. It weaves between left and right, and he freezes, gagging on booze fumes.

“Now, my friend,” says the owner of the knife, swaying a little, “I’ll ask you one more time: Name.”

“André Paquet.”

“Paquet, are you going to lie to me?”

“No. No, sir.”

“Good.” He rubs his eyes with the heel of his left hand. “Some slightly more complex questions now. Firstly: why were you watching me?”

“I was, um. I was supposed to scrag you.”

“‘Supposed’?”

“Yeah.”

“The inference being that someone told you to.”

“Er, yeah.”

“Who?”

“Some cunt.”

Beardy looked severely disappointed. “Paquet, we need more from you than that.” He waves his hand and the dagger slices through the air, almost accidentally missing his face. Paquet hears himself grunt. “We’re really… counting. Yes. Yes, _counting_ on you now. Paquet. Hmm?”

“Look, this cunt come to me, shows me twenty sous, says there’s more if I follow you and rough you up a bit.”

“Anything else?” The swaying point is back near his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah,” he speaks quickly. “Says it’s got to be this evening, keep you out late, kind of thing.”

“Name?”

“No name, sir.”

“Face?”

Paquet shrugs. “Just a face, innit?”

“Beard?” says the younger one from behind him. “Hair colour? Eye colour? Height? Age?”

“Look,” slurs the other, resting the tip of his knife on the top of Paquet’s head, “Imaskin, right?”

“Right…” the other sounds resigned.

Beardy looks down at him, shakes his head, refocuses. “Well? What he said.”

“Er, dunno. Like normal…” the knife slides off his head and starts its dance again. “Errr… no beard, like taller than me but not tall. Wore a cloak, which, like, in this heat, innit? And, er, brown boots.”

“What’s that?”

“Brown boots. You know - pointy, folded.”

“Like mine?”

Paquet risks a look down, can’t see a thing that low in the murk, screws his brow up in remembrance. “Yeah.”

“Spurs?” The younger one.

“Dunno. Er!” The blade flashes. “Er, yes! Heard ’em.”

“Right. Wait. Go back a bit?”

“What?”

“He asked you to keep me out late?”

“Yeah.”

“Just me?”

“Yeah. He didn’t say nothing about this cunt.” His hair is fisted to tug back his chin.

The knife is now out of sight, but the bearded man’s face looms. “Sure?”

“Positive.”

“It’s been wonderful, Paquet, but we have to go, and so do you.”

“No. No!”

“Come after me again, and I’ll kill you.”

A blow. Darkness. Silence.


	11. Recovering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which tiny signs are uncovered.

“Not that I’m objecting,” pants d’Artagnan, “but why are we running?”

“Because ‘some cunt’... is currently… searching my room… if we’re lucky…”

“Damn.”

“Yep,” he says and speeds up.

Cursing and skidding through several wrong turns and blind alleys, they make it back to the Sign of the Goat and duck inside. The mingled scents of tobacco smoke, beer, wine, body odour, raw fish, food, the tavern’s latrines, the cheap fuel on the hearth fire, tallow candles, and the marshy smell of bodily gases clamp over nose and mouth.

They push through the fug to the other side, get through the door, and pound up the ill-lit stairs. Another guest pokes a startled head out, then retracts it almost immediately - Athos has drawn his dagger again.

Gesturing to d’Artagnan to take the other side, he throws open the door unceremoniously, hearing his companion’s sword clear its sheath, then stands, just inside the darkened room, and roughly puts his own blade home at his waist.

He can feel d’Artagnan at his back, his short breaths stirring the hairs at the nape of his neck.

“Nothing?”

“Something.” He strides over to the window. “The book,” he points.

“Right?”

”I put it down square with the edges.”

“And now? Oh…”

“Only a little. My bags will have been searched. Shit!” He slams a fist on the table. Then: “My sword.”

“Where is it?”

He dives across and down to reach under the bed. It’s there. He stands, draws it, takes it to the window for the remaining light. It’s fine.

“So not a thief,” says d’Artagnan.

“No.”

“What did they want?”

“What I haven’t got.” He straps his sword on absently, and stoops to picks up the saddlebags. He rifles through them. Everything is there, though not quite as he remembers it. “So they didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“The signal.”

“Athos?”

“Yes?”

“Are you all right?”

Surprised, he looks up. D’Artagnan is gazing at him, very seriously. He smiles. “Yes, I’m fine. Everything is well. Thank you.”

The other smiles. “Oh. Good.”

“Except that someone is watching us and knows I’m here on business.”

“They should have stolen something.”

“They really should have.”

“What next?”

“Well,” he says, slowly, “I was thinking of going out into the dusk of Orléans and tracking down  _ some cunt  _ with a cloak and pointy boots. Preferably,” he taps it, “with my sword drawn.”

“Oh right…”

“Mm-hmm…”

D’Artagnan cracks first, grinning wryly. “Fine, fine.”

“I wait for my man tomorrow.”

“And if he doesn’t show up?”

“One more day, then I go.”

“So no change to your plan.”

“No change to the plan.”

“Do you want to go down to the bar?”

“What I want,” he says, considering, “is to get out of this shirt.”

“You kind of stink.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“What a waste of drink…”

“Did its job.”

He grimaces. “I suppose.”

He takes off his belt, hangs it, complete with dagger and sword, over the foot rail of the bed. He tugs the tail of the booze-stinking shirt out of his trousers, reaches back and over, seizes the fabric at the shoulders, and begins to tug it over his head.

A pair of hands smooth up his chest to help lift the garment off him.

“Hello,” he murmurs.

“Hello.” D’Artagnan lifts the fabric up from his face and gives him a quick kiss. Neutral-faced, he tugs first one of Athos’s wrists then the other free, then pulls the shirt from him.

Desire courses over him like water. He reaches for d’Artagnan’s belt and undoes it. D’Artagnan is still holding the shirt, and throws it hurriedly over Athos’s shoulder towards the chair. He lays his hands on Athos’s shoulders, gives a quick gasp as the belt tugs tighter before releasing him. Athos spools the leather into his hands, then looks around. D’Artagnan takes it off him, leans around and slings it and his weapons under the table.

D’Artagnan’s face shows clear in the early twilight from the window. He puts both hands either side of it and leans in. Their lips graze and sparks ignite in his chest and belly. Breathing shallowly, reining himself to a slow pace, he explores his lover’s lips with a barely open mouth, taking in the scent of him.

D’Artagnan seizes his torso, pulls him in at a rush, opens his mouth wide and delves deep with his tongue, tugging groans from each of them.

“Shut the door,” Athos manages. D’Artagnan breaks off, grabs the chair, flings the door closed and wedges the chair under the handle. He scoops up Athos’s doublet and hangs it over the handle, effectively blocking the keyhole.

“Remind me to ask for the key tomorrow,” says Athos.

“Mm-hmm,” says d’Artagnan, returning to his arms with a crash. Together they peel off his doublet and shirt, making tiny grunts at each effort. Soon they are wrapped around each other again, hands on necks, shoulders, waists. Athos seizes d’Artagnan’s hair and pulls his head back to bare his neck, grazing it lightly with his beard before licking a swathe from his collarbone to just under his ear. He releases his grip and sucks at that soft flesh.

Suddenly, he feels his own hair seized and pulled back. It sends shivers all across his swelling skin, from nape to groin, and tugs a gasping hiss between his teeth. He is released. He stares somewhat wildly at d’Artagnan.

“I thought you ought to feel how that is,” said the other with a shrug.

He clears his head with a shake and dives for d’Artagnan’s points. The other grabs his wrists with a chuckle. Together they tussle and sway in tight spirals until they end at the bed. Athos kicks at his boots to then slide them free. D’Artagnan sits to pull his tighter ones off, half-laughing, half frustrated.

Athos stands and watches in the dusk, hands on hips. D’Artagnan looks up. “You  _ could _ help me.”

“Hmm,” says Athos, a straight-faced, descending note. “Ask nicely.”

D’Artagnan reaches out, hooks the top of Athos’s breeches, and pulls him forward. He leans his head and places a soft kiss on his belly. Athos hears himself gasp, feels himself grow harder. D’Artagnan, head tilting this way and that, works his tongue and lips across Athos’s skin, kneading the sides of his waist gently with his thumbs, the tips of his hair brushing, maddeningly soft.

Athos stifles a whimper, unsuccessfully.

D’Artagnan looks up. “Please?”

“Oh, dear God,” says Athos in a rush, and kneels to tug him free of his boots.


	12. Uncovering

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which practicalites are observed... among other things...

Once off and flung, he crosses his wrists and scrolls fingertips in a rolling walk up both of d’Artagnan’s inner thighs. D’Artagnan shivers, lets his legs drift apart. Athos’s hands uncross, move to the waist of d’Artagnan’s breeches. He pauses, looks up swiftly at the face above him. D’Artagnan’s eyes are half-closed, and he nods a quick, lightly grunting assent. Athos undoes the points minimally and starts to tug d’Artagnan’s breeches down. The other responds by lifting his hips free of the bed. The clothes come free, and he slides them down slowly, gathering the hose on his way.

As he is revealed, d’Artagnan’s head goes back a little, his eyes roll shut, he licks and then bites his lower lip. Athos can feel his pulse hammering everywhere. He strips the rest of first d’Artagnan’s then his own clothing quickly, kicking them aside, then slides onto the bed next to him. D’Artagnan turns towards him with a moan, laying his hand on his face, bringing his head round so he can kiss him.

“Wait, wait,” pants Athos after a couple of minutes.

“What?”

“This is incredibly awkward.”

D’Artagnan opens his eyes. “Agreed.”

They scramble up, sit, mirroring, one leg drawn up, the other on the floor. They lean in to kiss, hands on faces, drawing patterns on flushing necks and chests. D’Artagnan is making tiny noises through his nose: nnf, nnf, and Athos answers every so often with a deep groan.

D’Artagnan breaks off. Athos finds himself rocking into the space for a couple of moments afterwards, opening his eyes to d’Artagnan’s face, held back at arm’s length, one hand on Athos’s chest. “Lie down with me?”

Three warring sensations rush through Athos’s mind, too primitive to be called thoughts. He opens his mouth to reply and sticks.

D’Artagnan grins. “Oh,” he says, “I see,” and stands.

Athos gazes at him, confounded. As he starts to rise, d’Artagnan begins to back slowly, towards the foot of the bed, smiling all the while. Athos’s gaze sweeps him, gleaming black head to long, bronze feet, arms held at his sides but lightly curled, palms upwards. Athos’s legs start after him, and then there’s a rush and he’s pressing d’Artagnan into the flat wall the other side from the slanting roof, mouthing his neck, feeling him writhe, those strong fingers digging into his back.

Now he has both hands in d’Artagnan’s hair and is kissing him with a bruising intensity, plunging his tongue into his mouth and capturing the vibrations of his moans. He runs his right hand down hard between their bodies and grasps their shafts together, gripping and pulling.

D’Artagnan’s head breaks back and he rolls it on the wall. “Christ  _ fuck! _ ” he shouts and makes a series of sounds akin to panic, his breath stuttering, shallow. His head comes forward, fast. “Oh, God, Athos!” he cries, then his mouth slackens. Athos feels him harden further. “I’m. Oh, Jesus.”

“Yes,” say Athos, fiercely. “Yes, oh, y-yes.” He plants his left palm hard against the wall, bracing, legs wide, stares directly at d’Artagnan, whose eyes go huge, hooked into him. It is almost too much to bear.

“I can’t,” d’Artagnan pants. “I. I’m so close.”

“I want you to,” he groans. “I want you to come with me.” He’s moments away, the man’s throbbing feeding his own in a tight, hot spiral.

“Oh,  _ God! _ ” D’Artagnan reaches up and pulls himself to Athos’s mouth, sweeping his lips with his tongue, gasping to Athos’s inexorable rhythm, rocking into his grip, then crying out as Athos feels everything tighten and, as d’Artagnan spends himself, throbbing, jerking spasmodically, he joins him a beat later, a denotation that rings through him.

They stand, trembling, forehead to forehead, for a moment. Athos unclamps his hand from them, goes to put it to d’Artagnan’s face, balks, forgets, goes to put it on his chest, no, in his hair, Christ no.

He shakes his head, brings his hand to his mouth, starts to lick it clean. “Unfair!” says d’Artagnan, and seizes his hand to do the same, pulling his forefinger deep into his mouth with a satisfied sound. A jolt goes through him, and he does the same for his own thumb. Between them, they lick and suck his hand clear of their mingled flavours, lips brushing as they do so, then peel themselves apart. D’Artagnan looks down between them and starts to snigger. Soon they’re both laughing weakly.

He salutes him, and walks towards the small basin on the battered dresser, feeling like he’s wading, the short distance a struggle. “I need to stop climaxing while standing,” he thinks. The ewer is beside it, and he rather thinks that whoever took the larger basin away has filled this with clean water. He blesses them absently, cups a little water in his hand and laves it down his front, rubbing. He does the same again, then planes the excess water off with the edge of his hand. That will have to do.

“My turn,” comes a wobbly-weary voice. The corner of his mouth goes up without thought and he stands to one side, then turns away, feeling oddly awkward. He scolds himself fuzzily:  _ it’s not even the first time you’ve seen him bathe _ . Ye-es, but.  _ But? _ What was I saying?  _ I have no idea. Bed? _

“I’m going to lie down,” he says, keeping his voice low and quiet, still hearing it shake a little.

“Hmm,” says d’Artagnan, who turns to follow him. Athos stops, stares at the bed.

“Um.”

“Y-ye-es?” yawns d’Artagnan hugely.

“Which, um. Which side do you…?”

“Oh, either.” Pause. “Left, then.”

“Right.” He crawls across the bed, clumsily kicks his way under the sheet and curls on his side. He feels the bed jounce behind him, and peers over his shoulder as a warm, damp hand lays on his arm.

“Athos?”

“Hmm?”

“May I hold you?”

“Oh! Oh, yes.” He starts to turn heavily, makes it to his back, and then feels d’Artagnan tuck along his arm, nuzzle his head into the crook of his neck, lay a warm arm across his collarbone.

“Hmm,” says d’Artagnan, sleepily. He feels that soft mouth curl against his chest. He reaches up to lay a hand on the encircling arm and, somewhere between that thought and touching, he falls asleep.


	13. Patience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which time passes all too slowly...

“What time is it _now?_ ” asks d’Artagnan.

Athos fishes out his pocket watch. “Twenty-one…” he squints, “Twenty- _two_ minutes before noon.”

“Right.”

Athos leans back, takes a sip of small beer.

“How do you know?”

“Hmm?”

“I mean: your watch might be wrong.”

He frowns. “Go on?”

D’Artagnan is sitting with his chin resting on his crossed wrists, which rest  on the table. They have chosen a different part of the room from where they ate dinner the previous night, by tacit mutual agreement. He moves his eyes up to Athos’s face. “I mean,” he says, “it may have wound down at some point…”

“It didn’t. I wound it yesterday.” As always, says his tone.

“Or it may have been set to the wrong time.”

“It’s set to the University’s clock in Paris.”

“What if that’s wrong?”

Athos considers him for a moment. “Then we’re all doomed.”

“How often do you check it? Against the University, I mean.”

He shrugs. “When I remember.”

“See?”

“No.”

“And it might have been… put out by the horse.”

“Pardon?”

“You know - all the little…” he joggles his shoulders, “bits.”

“Bits.”

“Gears. And things. Jolted by the… horse’s… gait.”

“I see.”

“Also: I heard a natural philosopher once…”

“Right.”

“Come on.”

“No, I’m listening.”

“I’ve met natural philosophers!”

“I’m sure you have.”

D’Artagnan’s mouth slants pettishly. “ _Anyway_ , _he_ said that time is different in different places.”

“No doubt.”

“Because the sun can’t shine on the same places at the same time.”

“Fascinating.”

“Don’t be mean.”

He frowns. “I wasn’t.”

“Ah, you’re using your public voice. Sorry.”

“My pub…”

“So it might be a different time here from in Paris.”

“My public v…”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Athos sighs. “We’re less than eighty miles from Paris.”

“The philosopher didn’t say.”

“Due south.”

“That’s…” He stops. Looks away in thought. “Actually, that’s a good point.”

“Actually.”

“Sorry.”

A long pause.

“My ‘public voice’?”

“Oh, you know…”

“No.”

“You… you sound more…” his head tilts, “remote.”

“Remote?”

“You…” he sits up, shifts forward, leans back from the table, lets his eyes shutter slightly, looks down his nose towards Athos, “ _sound more like this_.” He drops his voice to a slightly grating pitch, seems to be emulating the narrower tones of the upper class.

Athos is mildly appalled. “I don’t sound like that, do I?”

D’Artagnan relaxes his stance. “Well, obviously not _exactly_ like that, but…”

“I see.”

“I didn’t mean any offence.”

“No…”

He frowns, mouth quirking. “You’re vexed with me.”

“No…” he frowns himself. “Well, a little.”

“Ah.”

“It’s less you, more…” his hand circles, impotently.

“Sorry.”

“That’s… all right.”

His mouth stays slanted but his eyebrows go up in the middle. Athos finds it impossible to stay irritated in such circumstances.

D’Artagnan flops to the table again. “I wish we had some cards.”

“We do.” He is astonished.

He sits up; Athos sees puppy ears pricking, bites down on a smile. “We do?”

“I do.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Why di… Hm. May I borrow them?”

“Of course.” He hears his ‘public voice’ ringing in the dull room. It’s not a surprise, exactly, but it is.

“‘You’re no butcher’...” he mutters.

“Sorry?”

“Nothing. Do you have the key?”

D’Artagnan shuffles in his belt pouches, nods. Athos smiles, a slight, sideways tweak, which vanishes with the younger man. He takes two long, slow breaths, sips at his drink again. He grimaces. At some point someone has thought to improve the flavour with… he sniffs… cloves? They were mistaken. He drinks again. Or maybe it was something left over in the cup. He sets it aside and sits for a while, eyes distant.

“What’s up?” asks a slightly breathless d’Artagnan, dropping into his seat.

“Hmm? Oh, just,” he taps the hand that loosely encircles the base of his cup on the table a couple of times, “contemplating which parts of my life are directed by the circumstances of my ‘public voice’.”

“Hmm.”

“Quite.”

“Like what?”

He opens his mouth to say: my assumption of leadership; the way I hold my head; my voice; my clothes, even now; how often and how rigorously I wash myself; the fact I own a tooth cloth; the way I leave my clothes on the floor as soon as I’m removed from a military context; the languages I speak; what I do for leisure; the way I treat servants; the way I treat nobility; the way I eat… He closes his mouth again. “Just… things…”

“Ah,” says d’Artagnan, and he looks like he’s fighting a broader smile. “Do you want a game?” He waves the cards.

“If I said: I’d rather read my book, what would you say?”

“That Armand Boucher probably doesn’t read Herodotus in the original Greek in a public bar.”

His lips flatten together. “Good point.” He points. “What’s your game, then?”

“Reversis?”

“We don’t have counters.”

“Damn. Lenterne?”

“We’d need at least another player.”

“Right. Fifteen?”

“You’ll have to remind me of the rules.”

“There are…” he rolls his eyes upwards to review, “about three…?”

“Ah, yes.”

Eleven rounds of Fifteen go past. They take lunch. A few more rounds of mild drinks. They take it in turns to visit the latrines. They play two more hands of Fifteen. Athos leans back and pares his nails carefully.

“Why are you doing that?”

He looks steadily at his friend. “I’d like to ensure,” he says quietly, “that I don’t unwittingly cause any discomfort.” He holds the other’s gaze, watches with deadpan delight as understanding dawns with a flush over d’Artagnan’s neck and chest, creeps to his ears. He wonders if d’Artagnan knows that he is biting his lip. His eyes, sliding away, look huge, and very dark.

Athos flashes back to this morning, feels himself start to swell, and casually pulls his chair further in, stretches his leg out again, this time into d’Artagnan’s space. D’Artagnan is seated on a bench with his back to a partition and has nowhere to go. He smiles lazily at the Gascon and goes back to inspecting his nails, buffing at rougher edges.

“Whe-” d’Artagnan swallows, clears his throat, lowers his pitch by a half-octave. “When does your, er, cousin get here?”

Athos’s smiles broadens involuntarily, briefly, before he looks up with a mild expression and says, carelessly: “Daytime sometime, he said.”

“Oh.” D’Artagnan clears his throat again. “And what does that mean?”

Athos raises his eyebrows. This again?

“No, just: does ‘daytime’ mean ‘before dark’ or ‘before sunset starts’ or ‘before supper’ or…”

“I was just told: daytime.”

D’Artagnan’s eyebrows scrunch. “Damn,” he says, softly.

“Damn,” agrees Athos.

D’Artagnan waves the pack. “Another hand?”

“As you love me, please. No. Not… Maybe later.”

“Hah,” says d’Artagnan, quietly, looks down, and starts to shuffle.

Athos rests his cheek on his fist as he feels his attention slide. Memories are claiming him. That morning had summoned up in him what is starting to become a familiar churn of feelings.

It started with wakening slowly, quietly - no trumpet, no clatter of men dressing and arming for the day, no decamping, no change of guard or clash of arms.

Just the sound of breathing, close and slow, another’s heat. His heart started to trip. Is this another. Is this?

I don’t want the dream where no-one’s dead and

The dream where I hold my son

The dream of

Of her

Of

Of her dead. Beside me

Of.

_Focus. Open your eyes. You’re not there. Where are you?_

An attic guest room in a mid-range tavern in Orléans.

_Yes. Who’s beside you?_

I.

_Turn. Look._

Cold and heat churning in him, he turned to see broad, bronze shoulders, a silk sway of dark, dark hair. The relief chimed through him, closing his eyes and pulling a chestful of air into him. Magnetically drawn, warm again, he reached over as gently as possible to slide an arm around the other’s waist. D’Artagnan stirred a little, muttered, then subsided. He stayed as still as he could then felt, after a while, a hand touching his.

“Hmm,” said d’Artagnan, stretching his shoulders a little, rearranging his legs. He peered backwards, smiling over his shoulder. “Morning,” his voice a little thick.

“Morning,” he smiled back.

“Come closer.” So Athos flexed his arm, brought them sliding together. D’Artagnan repeated the shoulder-rolling gesture, slower, letting it ripple down his body.

Athos squirmed his left arm free, ran his palm up d’Artagnan’s back, swept his hair off his shoulder so that he could kiss it. He worked along the top of his shoulder to his neck, bringing his tongue more and more to bear, feeling the vibration of d’Artagnan’s gentle moans, tightening his grip about his waist.

D’Artagnan responded by arching back into him, and he felt his cock cupped by the smooth cleft of his arse, the incredible channel of his back. He bit down gently on d’Artagnan’s shoulder, and d’Artagnan shook in his embrace. He grabbed the sheet and flung it back, trampling it to the foot of the bed, wound his arm back around him that bit tighter.

“Oh, God, Athos,” moaned d’Artagnan, and he found himself pushing just a little harder, the friction almost, oh, _almost_ , _God_.

D’Artagnan’s right leg kicked back and hooked behind his own. This had the effect of. Oh. Opening d’Artagnan’s.

Oh.

He pushed forward, deeper into his flesh, feeling the friction change, just a little, just.

“Um, we should”

D’Artagnan rolled his pelvis back slowly, deliberately. The rest of Athos’s sentence was lost in a groan. He shifted his right hand to grip above d’Artagnan’s hip, pulling him to him, each thrust bringing him closer, starting to catch, wanting.

He was panting with the combined physical effort and restraint. D’Artagnan’s head was bowed forward and he was emitting tiny grunts. He shifted, and Athos felt his hand slide backwards between them to grip his shaft. He buried his cry in the flesh of d’Artagnan’s shoulder, teeth bared. D’Artagnan’s hand guided him so that he was pressed just at his entrance and now he could thrust as hard as he desired, that hand serving as both invitation and restraint. With every thrust he _just_ dented that delicate flesh; memories of the previous afternoon pulling at him.

“-onsieur?”

His elbow slips off the table. D’Artagnan muffles what sounds suspiciously like a cackle with the back of his hand.

“Hmm?!”

Madame Beaulieu is looking down at him with mild concern, reaching for his cup.

“Er. Y-yes. Please.”

Her lips make a small, wry twist that he’s not sure what to make of. She walks off with his cup. He looks at d’Artagnan. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.” His eyes are very bright. He clears his throat. “Tell me: was it memories or imaginings?”

He stares at him, head shaking slightly, side-to-side. Then: “Memories.”

“Ah.”

He looks closer, notices the other’s colour, leans forward. “You?”

“A little of both, if I’m honest.”

Athos smirks. “Really?”

“Mmmh. A… _continuation_ …”

“Hmmm.”

“What time is it now?”

He fishes his watch out, glares at it, narrow-eyed, drops his hands to the table and begins to wind it.

“What?”

“It lacks but a quarter-hour… to four.”

D’Artagnan’s long-drawn-out groan is punctuated by the thump of his head on the table.

He looks up. Athos grimaces sympathetically, then drops to neutral again. He pockets his watch, points. “Deal us another hand?”

A sigh. “Surely.”

Athos slides his leg further under the table and settles in to wait.


	14. Meeting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which an exchange is made.

“Are you certain?”

“Do it.”

“Are you _sure?_ ”

“Yes, _yes!_ ”

*  *  *

D’Artagnan taps him on his arm with the back of his hand.

“Hmm?”

He nods sideways, raises his eyebrows, mutters: “That him?”

Athos smiles pleasantly, says, “Let’s see, shall we?” He leans back in his chair and stretches. He then looks around slowly with a bored, almost sleepy expression. The only newcomer is a small, unobtrusively neat-looking fellow. He watches him long enough to see him walk to the bar and make his own, equally casual perusal of the room.

Athos faces d’Artagnan again, murmurs “Tell me where he’s looking.”

“Um. All around the room.”

“No,” he says immediately, moving his left hand out to the edge of the table . Where are his eyes - high, low, middle…?”

“Ah.” D’Artagnan rolls his head side to side, scrunching his shoulders. His eyes flick around, seeming to rest on the new figure by accident. “At tables,” he murmurs then gives a faint, polite smile and lifts his chin slightly in a small nod.

“What was _that?_ ” mutters Athos.

“What?”

“Did you just nod at him?”

“Prepare to meet your cousin…”

“Cousin?” cries a glad voice from behind him. Athos takes a deep breath.

Turning with a smile that he allows to broaden in the delight of recognition, Athos starts to rise. “You’re here!” he exclaims. He goes to clasp his arm, but the other has opened his for a warm hug, which Athos returns. There is much patting of backs, holding of shoulders to look each other in the eye.

“But please, sit down, sit down!” says his cousin. He does so. A bright, hazel eye turns to d’Artagnan, who swiftly writhes out of his seat and offers it to the gentleman. “Are you sure?”

“Of course,” says d’Artagnan with a warm courtesy. “You both must have so much to catch up on, and I’ll only take up space. I’ve been meaning to see more of the city anyway. I’ll see you later?” he says to Athos.

“Of course.” He suspects he looks a little grave, but it’s a struggle to keep his expression entirely neutral. _Don’t follow him with your eyes, God-damnit, drink in the sight of your cousin. You’re not Aramis._ “Until later!” he calls out casually, his eyes on the stranger who is settling himself into his seat.

“Goodbye!” calls d’Artagnan cheerfully. He hears him exchange some friendly words with the old men near the door.

“A good friend?” asks the stranger, carefully. His arms are crossed, elbows propped on the table. A short, silver beard and hair the same length and colour give him the look of a well-to-do merchant or craftsman of some kind. Athos could even believe him a scribe or accountant, if it weren’t for some of the telltale signs he is already looking for.

“A brother, in the same line of work.”

“Ah.” The man relaxes a visible notch.

“Would you like a drink?” He nods. Athos leans back and half-turns his head “Elise!” he calls.

“You’ve settled in well.”

“We’ve been here two days, cousin. A few more hours and…”

“Yes, monsieur?”

“A drink for my cousin, Elise.”

“Yes, monsieur, what would you like?” her voice is as colourless as usual, but the creeping flush that seems to come whenever either he or d’Artagnan address her directly has started just below her collarbone, and there is a small trace of sweat on her temple. It is, however, another warm day.

“A flagon of wine, to start,” says the stranger, affably.

“Yes, monsieur.”

“May I open a tab here?”

“Are you staying?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’ll have to check with madame.”

“Please do so.” His smiles are pleasant enough, but Athos mostly sees the watchful gaze above them, the way his shoulders fill his doublet, which has modestly slashed sleeves. Everything about the man murmurs moderation except his eyes, which resume their constant movement as soon as Elise departs.

“Armand Boucher,” says Athos, quickly, and quietly.

“And am I your mother or father’s relation?”

“Up to you.”

The man smiles minutely, but there is a brief spark of genuine warmth in his eyes, which broadens artificially as Elise approaches.

“Madame says that will be fine, monsieur.”

“Very well; thank you, Elise. When do you serve lunch?”

“Soon, monsieur.”

“What do you recommend?”

Athos doesn’t look up; he can feel her stuck, gazing at the stranger. He weighs in quickly: “The stew is always good, and the bread is fresh.”

“Put me down for that, Elise. And the same for my cousin.”

“What name shall I put down on the slate, monsieur?”

“Gaston Chevrolet.”

A pause. “Very good, monsieur.”

“Now, if you could bring me the wine?”

“Yes, monsieur. And for you, er, monsieur?”

“Some more water, please. And”

“And two cups for the wine,” says Chevrolet quickly.

“Very good, monsieur.”

As she departs, Chevrolet murmurs “What is a girl like that doing working here?”

“I’m sorry?”

“Well, look at her.”

Athos is shocked. He has barely thought of Elise past how likely it is that she saw him naked with d’Artagnan. He supposes that she is objectively pretty - nice figure, even skin, good teeth, a small crop of freckles across her nose and cheeks, and what he can see of the red-gold hair - but nothing stirs in him at this thought. He wonders distantly if he should be concerned about this.

He turns in his seat to look back after her as bid, then turns and frowns at the stranger. “Your meaning, cousin?”

“Well, she clearly hates working with people.” His focus returns to Athos. He smiles slightly, a one-sided, miniscule lift. “Or she just hates serving you…”

Athos gazes back at him, bland as butter.

After a moment, the courier drops his eyes, gives a slight nod. “My apologies, monsieur - it’s been a long journey.”

Athos’s eyes rove over him. He has clearly taken a chance to wash his face and hands, if that’s the case. Even change his clothes. By the look of him, he has walked here. They won’t find his horse next to d’Artagnan’s in the Goat’s stable.

“‘Chevrolet’?”

“My little joke.”

“You’re looking well,” says Athos as Elise’s footsteps return.

“That’s kind of you to say. I’m feeling my age these days, though.”

“How is your… thank you, Elise.”

“Monsieur.” Her steps recede again.

“And how is your mother?” asks Athos, politely.

The neat courier blinks at him briefly. “Dead.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“She asked me to bring you something to remember her by.”

“Ah?”

*  *  *

Three hours later, d’Artagnan steps lightly into the sun-dusty tavern. One of the old men is snoring, while another gently croons an old war song, full of pain and farewell, in a voice still fine, though dry and a little cracked. A few more regulars have taken their usual seats. Athos is sitting alone at their table. His head is bowed and there’s a flagon by his right elbow. D’Artagnan feels his pace slow, but he can’t fight the smile that always blossoms when he sees Athos, even now, with his friend looking so quiet and indrawn.

And then Athos looks up, and the way his face awakens to d’Artagnan makes his heart turn over and he knows.

He’s always known.

Oh God, he prays, let us always have this. Until we’re old and gnarly, singing ancient songs in dusty taverns. Let him light at the sight of me, push his drink aside, fight himself not to embrace me. Just like this. Always like this.

Until he can take me in his arms.

*  *  *

“Ready?”

“I trust you. Do it.”

*  *  *

Athos can feel his face cracking and melting as d’Artagnan steps into the room. He would know that gait anywhere now, he swears. He reflexively pushes the wine away, feeling as though it carries his melancholy with it.

He feels fresh sweat spring across his chest and shoulders. It’s not just rising into the warmer air, he knows this. He stands, hands by his sides, just looking at d’Artagnan, who stops a few paces from him, easy smile on his face, head tilted just a little. His hair swings about his face, and Athos feels his hand twitch to reach up, push it back.

Their lovemaking of the night before had been just that. He’d half-expected something wild and raucous to burst open the tension of the day’s waiting, but they’d already taken a brisk walk after supper and it seemed as though what they needed was to be slow, gentle, thorough, lying face-to-face, kissing for what seemed like hours before moving onto anything more explicit.

He remembers turning around, swivelling to bring his head level with his lover’s hips, bending his knees so as to clear the head of the bed, taking him in his mouth, then feeling d’Artagnan tuck forward to do the same for him. Knowing that he was sharing the same pleasure at the same time was heady, but they both undertook to make everything last, lapping and stroking, taking breaks to mirror tongue on sac, and breath and fingers on the places between.

He closes his eyes and breathes in deep enough to make his chest creak, feeling as though he’s taking in light as well as air. When he opens his eyes it’s as if there’s nothing in this dingy room but him and d’Artagnan.

He sees that d’Artagnan is struggling to suppress the larger smile lurking behind his bright eyes.

“Are you well?” he asks.

“Quite well,” says d’Artagnan, mouth quirking a little.

“You weren’t too bored?”

“No - the town’s lovely. How is your cousin?”

“Well. Sorrowing for his mother’s death, but I don’t think it was exactly unexpected.”

D’Artagnan’s face drops. “I’m so sorry - did you know her well?”

“My mother’s older sister. We weren’t close, but I’d still like to go to church, light a candle for her.”

“Of course,” says d’Artagnan, sober and attentive.

“We can do that on the way home, though.”

“Are we leaving straight away?” Athos can see him fighting a different emotion.

“That depends - have you eaten?”

“I found a nice place a few streets away, wandered the market.”

“Good,” says Athos.

“We should, er, pack,” says d’Artagnan, slowly.

“There’s really no rush,” says Athos.

“Still.”

“Yes.”


	15. Exchanging

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which certain fundamental truths are explored about a point of no return, and a journey is embarked upon.

Upstairs, d’Artagnan closes the door and presses Athos into it, kissing him deeply. Athos moans into him. D’Artagnan moves to his neck and he stuffs the edge of his hand into his mouth and bites down on it to muffle himself. D’Artagnan strokes the fronts of his legs, then reaches into his right-hand pocket and brings out the key, which he passes to his right hand to lock the door, without ever taking his mouth from Athos.

Athos takes him by the shoulders and pushes him backwards towards the bed. D’Artagnan makes a laughing, token resistance, kissing Athos thoroughly as a distraction. His legs hit the frame of the bed and he runs his hands down and around Athos’s torso to cup and knead his arse. Athos’s left hand tightens reflexively in his hair, but d’Artagnan tugs Athos’s shirt from his breeches and pushes his doublet off his shoulders, restraining him slightly. He pulls Athos’s wrists behind his back and holds them there with one hand while he sucks at his neck. This is right at the edge of what Athos finds comfortable; his hands tingle and his breath grows shallow. D’Artagnan is learning his signs well, however, and releases him within a few moments to push his doublet off and onto the floor.

Athos considers tugging d’Artagnan’s hair in gentle revenge, but is also learning how to read his lover’s signs. He lets d’Artagnan strip his shirt and belt from him, undo his points, and turn him to push him to the bed. He kneels and pulls off Athos’s boots, and summarily pulls off his breeches and hose. He then stays kneeling, still fully-clothed, reaches out, and places a gentle hand on the base of Athos’s shaft, cupping and stroking his balls as he does so.

“Mmmh.” Athos’s moan is throaty, his heart hectic in his chest. A half-second’s warning of his lover’s wicked grin is all he gets before his member is engulfed with a moan of d’Artagnan’s own.

“Dear _God._ ” D’Artagnan has taken him deep - deeper than he’s ever done before. He can feel the head of his cock pressing against the back of his throat. The sensation - hard, soft, lapping, enclosing, warm, tight, God, so tight, so fucking warm, wet - Jesus…

D’Artagnan releases him in a rush of breath and, before Athos can quite recover, dives on him again, this time bobbing a little on him before surfacing. And then again, this time to reach a tongue to lap at his balls before returning to a position where he can breathe through his nose.

“Dear _fucking_ Christ!” says Athos, on an awed whisper. He is holding tight with every ounce of his being not to just explode in the man’s mouth and throat, hands clenched on the edge of the mattress. Looking down, he sees the black silk of d’Artagnan’s head bobbing in his lap and feels everything swelling that little further. He unclenches his right hand and reaches out to stroke d’Artagnan’s hair, unable to speak to warn him past a series of “Ah, ah, _ah_ ”s, lip bitten so hard that later he will find a small cut there, still tender under his touch.

D’Artagnan raises his head and smiles at him, lips dark and engorged, eyes wild. He moves down and laps at Athos’s balls. He clearly has no plan for him to come immediately. Athos rolls his eyes and tries desperately to hold onto his sense of honour under such provocation.

D’Artagnan rises from his gentle torture and pushes slowly on Athos’s chest. Dazed, Athos complies, lying back on the bed. D’Artagnan works his tongue up Athos’s body, past his cock, on up his abdomen, which strains with the effort not to thrust, up his chest, toying with his nipples, mouth on one, fingers on the other, then up to Athos’s neck.

He gets it, suddenly - a return for the other afternoon. His wicked chuckle is stopped by d’Artagnan’s tongue and he seizes his face, returns his attention until they’re both gasping, flushed.

“You’re wearing too much,” says Athos.

“Help me?”

“It would be my pleasure.”

They stand and, between them, they remove d’Artagnan’s clothing in short order, with no stopping to play or tease, only the occasional pause where laying flesh against flesh is too much of a temptation to pass by. The  breeches off, Athos remains kneeling, moves close, opens his mouth to d’Artagnan, guides him across his tongue. Distantly, he senses d’Artagnan seizing the bed rail to steady himself. He doesn’t think he can match how deep d’Artagnan took him, is a little afraid to try. He holds his shaft firmly, matching strokes with movements of his head, taking his left hand to dally between d’Artagnan’s legs, which immediately shift apart. He lets his fingers drift further back, rewarded by a pulse, a gasp, a quiver that rocks through him.

He takes his mouth away, continuing the strokes of his right hand, liberally coating the fingers of his left with saliva before returning them to where d’Artagnan throbs and grasps, pressing, circling, pressing.

“Ah. Ah, A-Athos, Athos. Athos, hold… hold on. Uh.”

He pauses, looks up, raising his eyebrows. D’Artagnan is biting his lip to one side, breathing hectically.

“I-” he says, and shakes his head. “I’ve got, um. Something.”

Athos’s head tilts to one side. D’Artagnan holds up one finger. _Wait_. Athos applies a fraction more pressure with his own finger. D’Artagnan gives him a look where chagrin, humour, and longing mingle deliciously. Athos doesn’t move. D’Artagnan leans to where he’d placed his belt on the bed. He straightens, bringing it up to his chest. Athos presses a little again with his left, adds a gentle squeeze to his right. D’Artagnan makes a noise like “unf”, shakes his head as if to clear it, delves in the larger of the belt pouches, and brings out a smallish bottle. Athos raises his eyebrows again, but the side of his mouth starts to lift in a grin as understanding dawns.

“Where did you…?”

“The market, at lunchtime. Grapeseed oil.”

“Oh.”

“Hmm.”

“Well then,” says Athos, head clanging with possibilities, “we’d better try it out.”

The grapeseed oil turns out to be lighter and slightly thinner than olive oil, but smells of virtually nothing. Athos smiles, coats his hands and, at d’Artagnan’s look of mild alarm, says: “Lie down on your front. I’m going to give you a massage.”

It’s clear that d’Artagnan has never heard the term before, but he lies down obediently in the middle of the bed. Athos has not done this for a while, but the rhythm soon comes back to him. He kneels astride d’Artagnan’s hips and sets up a gliding, upwards rhythm, hearing d’Artagnan’s satisfying groans in answer. Good. He wants him relaxed. He leans into his stroke, imagining, as he does so, d’Artagnan’s cock pressed rhythmically into the sheets. He works his way down, leaning close, his own cock dragging along the midline of d’Artagnan’s body as he does so.

He sits astride his thighs now, moves his oiled hands over his buttocks in actions which smoothly change to caresses, lets his fingers play patterns over the rounded flesh. Moving further down, he changes pattern and rhythm, his thumbs starting to dig lightly between d’Artagnan’s buttocks. The man beneath him moans and leans back into Athos’s caress as best he can.

Carefully, Athos lifts first one knee then the other to slot between d’Artagnan’s legs. D’Artagnan parts them with alacrity, bending slightly at the knee. Athos grins again, and brings his face down so that his tongue can caress where his thumbs were.

Soon he has d’Artagnan’s hips raised, his thighs splayed. He is making the most extraordinary sounds; complex,with ranging tones from deep, guttural utterances to something like whimpers. Athos revels in the smell and taste of him, pushing his tongue as deep as he can make it go, then laying broad strokes from his balls, across the hard nub of flesh between, and on up to his tailbone.

D’Artagnan is starting to push back towards him. Athos reaches for the bottle and drips more oil onto the fingers of his left hand.

“I’m going to touch you now.”

“Oh, God, please.”

“I’m going to put my fingers inside you.”

Another push backwards. “Please, Athos.”

“On one condition.”

“Oh, oh, yes. What is it?”

“You must tell me how it feels.”

“Bastard,” he growls. “Of course.”

“Hmm. Now.”

He lays his middle finger against him and pushes. Now he has a better idea of the angle to take, it’s much easier, and his mind is soon consumed by the sensation of entering him, the heat, the clutching throb.

“So,” he says, trying to master his shaking voice, “how does it feel?”

“Mmmmh.” D’Artagnan pushes back a little. “Like. Like an invasion. But. Oh, Christ, when it gets deeper.” Athos pushes deeper, starts to feel that smooth, rounded part inside him. “Yes, there, Jesu. Yes.”

“What is it like?”

“Like. Unf. Like that feeling when you know you’re going to c-climax, when everything… _tightens_.”

He sets up a gentle rhythm. D’Artagnan cries out a little, presses back, matching the beat.

“Tell me,” he says, panting slightly, “do you want more?”

“Mmmh. Mmnearly. Not quite. Not. Mmmh. Not…”

“Not yet.”

“Mmmh.” He sees d’Artagnan nod, black silk ragged across the pillows. He reaches and lays a hand on his lover’s belly, leans his own against that tented arse, keeps the rhythm smooth, calm, clenching down on his own urges for the moment.

“Athos?” comes d’Artagnan’s wobbly voice.

“Yes?”

“Um, more now? Um. Please?”

“Of course.” He adds a drop more oil, withdraws his middle finger slightly, and eases his ring finger inside. The reward of d’Artagnan’s muffled moan sets him throbbing. He feels movement, looks forward, sees that d’Artagnan has raised himself up slightly so that he can push back even more strongly.

“How. How does it feel?” he asks.

“Oh, fuck. It feels. It feels amazing. I’m. I’m stretching, opening, my. Oh, my. It’s. Unnh. Being touched by you inside me, it’s. Fuck. I can’t. Unh.”

“That’s all right,” he finds himself soothing, then drops his head down so that he can add his tongue to the sensations, first above, to some very satisfying sounds, and then twisting his head to below, tonguing his balls, which summons up an extraordinary ululation.

After a while: “Athos…?”

“Mmhyes?”

“Um.”

“Ah,” he says, straightening. “More?”

“Oh fuck. Please.”

Another drop of oil. And now his index finger.

“Oh God, so full! So _fucking_ _full!_ ” cries d’Artagnan. Athos is trying for slow and gentle, watching the skin stretch and whiten around his fingers. D’Artagnan pushes back into him, groaning. “Oh, _God!_ ” he all-but shouts.

Athos is feeling something between awe and a lust that brims in every atom of his body. He lets his middle finger quiver at the top of each thrust, just as he would inside a woman, and is rewarded by wonderful grunts and spasms around him.

“Athos?”

“Yes?”

“Will you…”

“Yes?”

“I. Help me. I don’t know how to ask.”

“Oh, God.” He knows. “You have to say it.”

“Oh. Oh, fuck. Please.”

“Say it.”

“I want y… Oh. Oh, _Christ, yes_ . I want. I want you to fuck me. Please.” A dam has burst. “I want you inside me. Deep inside me. Fucking me. Holding me. Please. Oh, God, _please_.”

Something like panic flares in Athos’s brain, but it’s overridden by everything else in him.

“All right, d’Artagnan, first. First I need to, to withdraw. It’ll be but a moment, all right?”

“Mmh. Mmmmh. Oh.”

He looks down. D’Artagnan is now raised completely on all fours, head dangling. He gets off the bed, moves to the head of it, and says: “Kiss me.”

“Wh-what? Yes. Yes.”

Athos cups his chin, lays deep, frantic kisses on his mouth, half-propped on the bed, d’Artagnan moaning into him. He breaks off and looks down, ducks to suck briefly on d’Artagnan’s dripping cock, to another barrage of delicious sounds. He slides off the bed and then back behind d’Artagnan, still trembling, but resolute, opens the bottle again and slicks oil along his member, leaning into the sensation, feeling himself harden in anticipation.

“Oi!” says d’Artagnan, who he can see looking back at him. They smirk at each other.

He kneels up behind his lover, stretches his buttocks slightly with his thumbs, and leans into him.

He finds he needs to press down slightly with his hand to keep guiding himself. He adds more pressure, feels the flesh tent, part, and.

Oh God. “Oh, God, so tight, so _fucking tight_.”

“Oh! Oh, _God!_ ”

He

Fuck.

He

He is.

“Oh. Oh, you’re fucking me.”

“Yes, yes I am! Oh! Oh, _Jesus!_ ”

“Fuck!”

He is perhaps an inch or so inside him. The most incredible warmth surrounds him. And grows. He looks down. D’Artagnan is pushing back, slowly but firmly, gathering him in, engulfing him.

He lays his left hand on his back, at the flat part near the base of his spine; his right hand goes to grip his hip. D’Artagnan whimpers at this. He stops resisting, and pushes forward the final inch himself, locked completely inside him, feeling the ludicrous, beautiful sensation of his balls touching d’Artagnan’s.

And then d’Artagnan starts to rock against him, and instinct takes over, his hips rocking and thrusting, the hot body heaving against him, around him. He reaches forward to touch more of him, laying his left arm out to hold his shoulder, snaking his right around his stomach.

His mind is lost in sensation, using d’Artagnan’s shoulder as a place to pull from, deepen his thrusts. He fumbles briefly, and takes d’Artagnan in his right hand, starts to stroke him. D’Artagnan cries out, rocking even harder now.

The bed is creaking, squeaking, knocking on the wall. Their fucking is setting up a muted thunder and all he can think is Yes and More and Deeper and Yes and

“Come!” he cries to d’Artagnan. “I want you! Oh! Oh _fuck!_ ” he grates between clenched teeth at another wave of sensation. “I want you to come!” he pants. “Come with me!”

“Jesu. Then. Then, hah, you’d better. Ah, _ah!_ You’d better _fuck me harder_ then! Come on, you noble bastard! Is that _all you’ve fucking got?!_ ”

“Fucking hell!” He pulls back and leans hard into his stroke, plunging the length of himself into him over and over. “Like this? Like this?!”

“Yes! Yes!” shouts d’Artagnan, and Athos feels his legs begin to tremble, his body gather around him, his shaft thicken and everything

Every

Fuck!

He manages one last thrust before he comes, roaring, into him, feeling d’Artagnan spurt, hot and frantic over his spasming hand. D’Artagnan collapses beneath him, and Athos has just enough sense left to withdraw before falling over himself.

He hauls himself, crawling, up d’Artagnan’s body. D’Artagnan turns in his arms and they rest, trembling, against each other, exchanging vague, exhausted kisses, murmuring nonsense.

A mere hour later, they are on the road north.


	16. Returning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which a long road curves ahead of our adventurers, through a golden afternoon.

“Are you all right?”

D’Artagnan shifts slightly. “I’m beginning to regret…” Athos feels a tendril of cold trickle through him, “not taking your advice.”

“Ah.”

“Some padding would definitely do wonders right now.”

“We still have some hours of sunlight left. We can take it easy on the way home, stop a couple of times, if needs be.”

“I don’t think I’ll be up for any… hm… prolonged, hard riding for a while.”

Athos grins. He can’t help it. “I absolve myself of all responsibility.”

“On the contrary, I believe this to be at least three-quarters your fault.”

“A quarter I’ll concede to. Maybe. Somewhere between an eighth and a quarter.”

“Two-thirds.”

“I might be able to meet you halfway…”

“Dear God, your voice goes through me to the core.” D’Artagnan’s voice is ragged with many emotions.

Athos closes his eyes briefly, sways with the horse. “Well,” he says, slyly, cracking them open, “we’ll have to see what else we can do with that knowledge.”

D’Artagnan shakes his head. “You bastard.”

“Not. Even. Nearly.”

There is silence for a while, but for the ambling clurrup and jing of the horses, the hush of leaves and afternoon birdsong mixed with the chirr of insects. They have been on the road for just over two hours. The horses have a great deal of energy and could clearly go faster, but the men seem reluctant to speed through such a beautiful afternoon.

“I meant to ask,” says Athos, after they pass a man carrying a bundle of wood on his shoulders.

“Yes?”

“Where’s your usual horse?”

“Oh. Fontainebleau.”

Athos turns to frown at him, tilting his head to clear the hat’s brim from his vision.

D’Artagnan smiles back, a man with a secret.

“Wait…”

D’Artagnan waits.

“You went Porthos’s route.”

“And changed horses.”

“Ah. That’s how you got there before me.”

“Barely,” says d’Artagnan.

“I’ve somehow never got around to asking: how did you know where to find me?”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“Remember asking that man for directions?”

“Which one?”

“Good point.”

“What?”

“Well, I knew you were headed to the Cathedral, so I just had to lean in from the other side when you were talking to that talkative fellow who wanted to advise you about nearby taverns. Then, after your theatrical disappointment at The Three Lilies, there was only one option.”

“Huh.” He frowns. “The other side of what?”

“Your horse.”

Athos looks down between his legs. “You traitor.”

D’Artagnan laughs so hard at this that he has to stop, and sits there, doubled, clutching himself. Athos halts and half-turns the horse, props his chin on his fist, one arm across him, smiling and smiling.

D’Artagnan looks up, pulls one glove off with his teeth, and swipes at his leaking eyes. He sniffs hard.

“Ready?”

“Huh, h-yeah. Let’s,” he clears his throat. “Let’s.”

“All right. Up for a trot?”

“Maaaybe.”

“Let’s find out.” He clicks his tongue, guides his horse into a trot with his legs. Behind him comes a huff of laughter, a “Hyup!” and d’Artagnan is racing past him at a flat canter, low over his horse’s neck.

Athos growls merrily and urges his own horse to follow suit. It’s only as they round the corner and he sees the overhanging darkness ahead that he remembers what he should have told d’Artagnan before.

“Shit!” He slaps the reins down and presses the horse into a gallop shouting: “D’Artagnan! Stop!”

“Hah!” floats back to him.

Shit!

He hears the first shot go wide, but the other nicks his upper left arm, turning him in his saddle. His horse, well-trained, doesn’t balk, just jinks and keeps running as he recovers his position, wincing. D’Artagnan’s post horse, up ahead, is plunging and screaming, fighting its rider’s control.

There’s a shot and d’Artagnan flies from his saddle.

“No!” he roars, pulling his own pistol, flinging his hat off and scanning the tree line, horse controlled by his knees to a tiptoeing, side-shuffling kind of halt. He turns them in a slow circle, now with both hands filled with the comforting grip of pistol stock.

“Come out and throw your weapons to the ground, and I promise this will go easier on you. You’ve just shot a King’s Musketeer.” His voice is cold and steady.

“Doesn’t count if you’re not in official uniform!” comes back to him.

“I have a garrison of brothers who’ll think otherwise, _un_ officially,” he returns, each syllable ringing like ice. “And if we’re both dead, who’ll protect you from them?”

His turning and the the horse’s side-steps have brought them close to where d’Artagnan lays and his horse still panics. He refuses to look down, turns again, eyes high. “What do you say?”

A whistle. A rope goes across him and he’s pulled backwards from the horse. He fires right mid-flight, and hears a satisfying thump just after his own, coupled with a groan.

A boot stamps down on his left wrist, the still-loaded gun wrested from his grasp and the other kicked away. Two, then.

He’s hauled to his feet, and he hangs limply, head forward, waiting. The man on his right shifts, gets his foot stamped on and a dagger in his guts.

And Athos hears the click of his own pistol, which is pressed to his temple. A hard arm goes across his throat; fingers knot in the shoulder of his doublet.

“Now, now, monsieur. You know what we want. There’s no need for any further unpleasantness, and we can be very unpleasant.” Athos stands extremely still. “Good. Now drop it.”

Athos drops his dagger. He has at least three more weapons to hand. “Easy now,” he says, fingers inching towards the next one.

“I said drop it!” Athos frowns. And looks up to a crackle ahead of them.

D’Artagnan is standing, panting, pistol trained on him.

“No…”

“Yes,” says d’Artagnan grimly.

“Drop it.”

“You first.”

The arm tightens. Athos makes an involuntary choking sound.

“I’ll shoot him.”

“I wouldn’t advise it,” says d’Artagnan quietly. “Most of your companions are dead or severely injured. I’m in some pain and my normally sunny disposition is quite spoiled. If you shoot him, you’ll have nothing left, and I promise you this: _I won’t kill you straight away_.”

Athos’s left arm is starting to throb. “This isn’t a good end,” he advises.

“Shut up!” He’s choked again, and he drags on the other’s arm to purchase some air. He’s dragged backwards a little way, and black spots start to dance in his narrowing vision.

“D’Artagnan!”

“I won’t lose you!”

“Shut up!”

“What do you want?”

“You know what we want!”

“Tell me!”

“Your friend didn’t have it, so you must.”

His heart sinks: merry, sharp, frivolous-grave Chevrolet. Damn.

“He told us a lot before he went.”

“He told you nothing.”

“Everything.”

“He was too experienced!”

“Don’t move! I said _stop moving!_ ”

Athos digs his heels in, but the other is very strong.

“D’Artagnan!”

“I’m right here!”

“Take the shot!”

“No!”

“Yes! It’s the only way!”

“Shut up or you both die!”

“Oh, fuck off!” says Athos. “D’Artagnan,” he says, as calmly as possible. “Remember the landing at the Goat?”

He sees d’Artagnan’s eye flicker, remembering. “Are you certain?”

“Do it.”

“Are you _sure?_ ”

“Yes, _yes!_ ”

“Will you both shut up!” and he slews to a halt. “I swear I’ll shoot him!”

“Ready?”

“I trust you. Do it. _Now._ ”

Athos abruptly lifts his feet off the ground, hangs his full weight on the footpad’s arm, fingers digging to afford him a little space from strangling. He hears two reports, one incredibly loud and close, feels the impact, falls to the ground.

He lies for what seems like an eternity, hearing a horrible, gurgling rhythm that eventually slows and fades to a last, whistling rattle. He looks up. A hand is reaching down to him. A gloved hand at the end of a long, lean, brown leather arm.

He smiles in a rush, seizes it, is pulled up and into d’Artagnan’s embrace.

A thump behind him as the pistol drops to the ground. “I thought I’d lost you,” they say, in ragged unison.

“Never.”

“Never.”

Their kiss starts desperate, crushing, turns long, slow, consuming, and they fall to their knees in the leafmould, lost to everything but the sound, feel, smell, and taste of each other.

“Never leave me.”

“Never.”

And he thinks: there’s still a long road ahead.


	17. Destination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which some ends are tied, and others loosened.

Treville looked down at them, clopping slowly through the gates just after dawn. “You’re late.”

“Apologies,” said Athos, in his most public drawl, “we did send a messenger.”

“Yes,” said Treville, “well. Get some breakfast in you and head straight over to the Palace.”

“Yes, sir.” The captain withdrew into his office.

They dismounted stiffly. Aramis and Porthos came ambling over. “Been in the wars?”

“Apparently so.”

“What happened?” Aramis, as ever, had the softer mien.

“Got ambushed.”

“So we heard. What took you so long?”

They looked at each other.

“Well…”

“Well, Athos was injured. We had to, er, take our time.” The others cocked their heads.

“It’s nothing.” He tapped his arm. “Just a flesh wound. But we did have to round up the horses.” Via Fontainebleau.

“Good job you were there, really,” said Porthos, “on your day off. How was your cousin?”

“A miracle of the road,” agreed d’Artagnan, casting his eyes heavenwards. “I thank the Heavenly Mother for it.” And they all crossed themselves reflexively.

“She certainly delivered you from evil,” smiled Aramis at Athos, who nodded absently.

“And you?” asked Porthos of d’Artagnan.

“Hmm?”

“You seem to be limping a bit there.”

“Oh…” he said, dismissively. “Just a bit saddle-sore.”

“He fell off his horse,” said Athos, deadpan.

The others started to laugh.

“I _jumped_ off my horse. I wanted them to believe I’d been shot.”

“Worked, too,” said Athos, quietly.

D’Artagnan turned a swift, contrite, lip-bitten face to him. Athos faced Porthos and Aramis quickly. “What about you two?”

“Us?”

“Yes - no new scars that I can see.” He inspected them critically. “Fresh as daisies, the pair of you.”

Porthos stuck his jaw out, shook his head. “Nothing to report. Quiet roads, easy exchange. No bother.”

They looked at Aramis. “Look,” he said, holding his hands up, “I didn’t know her brother was a butcher…”

The others roared as a groom came to collect their horses. They headed off to take breakfast, Porthos clapping Athos on the shoulder. “Did you go via Fontainebleau, then?”

“Not exactly…”

“See? You need to follow my directions next time.”

He raised his arms in surrender, swiftly dropping them as the left protested. “I concede.”

“I still don’t understand how it took you so long…” said Aramis to d’Artagnan, a little quieter.

D’Artagnan shrugged. “We were just taking care of business,” he said, with a sunny smile.

*  *  *

Athos, in a fresh set of clothes, with face, hair, and hands washed, strode through one of the corridors of the Palace, heading for

“What’s your business here?” A new guard, who needed to be shown his restored pauldron and raised eyebrow.

“My apologies.”

“No matter. I have an urgent message for the Queen.”

“Er, right this way.”

“I know,” he said, dryly. When the man hesitated, he added, steadily: “Be about your business.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Queen was not in her chambers. Damn. It had been impressed emphatically upon him how directly this message needed to be passed on. As he turned, thwarted, he spotted Constance Bonacieux heading at speed down the other corridor away from him.

Where had she come from? No matter. “Madame! Madame Bonacieux!” Damnit. “ _Constance!_ ” She skidded to a turning halt in a rather unladylike fashion. He suppressed the warm smile that summoned in him and hurried after her, all neutral courtesy. “Madame, a moment?”

“Yes, monsieur?” She looked as if she was about to bob a curtsy, then frowned, almost to her herself, finally looking up at him with a slightly breathless smile as he approached. She looked a little flushed. Well, it was a warm day, even in the Palace.

“I have a message for your mistress.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, and it needs to be handed directly to her or - in this case - her closest confidante.”

“Thank you!” She took the small package from him, gave a small bob with a nod of her head. Palace life was suiting her, he thought. Removed from the narrow gaze of the draper and arraigned in rather more regal clothing, she seemed to glow.

He smiled. She smiled back, nodded again, turned to leave. “Ah, madame,” he said. “I have another message.”

“You do?”

He dropped his voice, leaned forward a little, watched her mirror him. “A verbal one this time, purportedly from Ninon de Larroque.”

Constance paled a little, but remained collected. “Go on,” she said, with another brisk, little nod.

“It is simply this: ‘Remain true to yourself.’”

“Oh.” She looked at him, as if expecting more.

“There is nothing further, madame.”

“Well,” she said, leaning back again. “Well, thank you, monsieur, er. Thank you, Athos.”

“It was my pleasure,” he assured her gravely, with a slow, deep courtesy of his own.

He turned and they departed. He heard her feet pick up speed to something perilously close to a run.

As he walked towards his duty he smiled, remembering the soft brush of a farewell kiss on his lips on a forest path, but it was not Ninon de Larroque’s.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all again, _so much_ , for following this, giving feedback, etc. It’s been a blast constructing a much longer piece (I didn’t know it was going to be this long, but they do rather demand attention, don’t they...?)
> 
> I’m working on something new now which shifts direction somewhat - watch out for Queen’s Gambit...


End file.
